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Title: Mr. Punch's History of Modern England Vol. IV of IV.
Author: Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Mr. Punch's History of Modern England Vol. IV of IV." ***
MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND VOL. IV. OF IV.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
underscores: _italics_.
[Illustration: AFTER TEN YEARS
Reproduced from the original cartoon.]
Mr. Punch's History
of Modern England
By
CHARLES L. GRAVES
IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOL. IV.--1892-1914
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1922
_Published by arrangement with the Proprietors of "Punch"_
CONTENTS
PART I
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER
HIGH POLITICS
CAPITAL AND LABOUR
EDUCATION AND THE CHURCHES
THE ADVANCE OF WOMEN
INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES, NOVELTIES
CHANGING LONDON
PART II
SOCIAL LIFE IN TRANSITION
CROWN AND COURT
VANITY FAIR
FASHION IN DRESS
LETTERS AND JOURNALISM
FINE ARTS, DRAMA AND MUSIC
SPORT AND PASTIME
INDEX TO THE FOUR VOLUMES
PART I
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER
HIGH POLITICS
Transition and growth, change and decay and reconstruction marked the
half-century covered in the previous three volumes. In the twenty-two
years that divide the return of the Liberals in 1892 from the "Grand
Smash" (as Mr. Page has called it) of 1914, these features are
intensified to an extent that renders the task of attempting even a
superficial survey perilous and intractable to one who is neither a
philosopher nor a trained historian. The wisest and sanest of those who
have lived through these wonderful times are too near their heights
and depths to view them in true perspective. Whatever merit attaches
to this chronicle is due to its reliance on contemporary opinion as
expressed in the pages of an organ of independent middle-class views.
It is within these limits a history of Victorians and post-Victorians
written by themselves.
"Full closes," unfashionable in modern music, are generally artificial
in histories. But the period on which we now enter did more than merely
coincide with the end of one century and the beginning of another.
It marked the passing of the Old Order, the passing of the Victorian
age: of the Queen, who, alike in her virtues and limitations, in the
strength and narrowness of her personality, epitomized most of its
qualities; and of the type of Elder Statesmen, of whom, with the sole
exception of Mr. Balfour, none remains at the moment as an active
force in the political arena. Of the Ministry of 1892-5 the only
survivor who mixes in practical politics is Mr. Asquith, but his record
as a legislator hardly entitles him to the name of an Elder Statesman
in the Victorian sense. Sir George Trevelyan, Lord Morley, Lord
Eversley and Lord Rosebery have all retired into seclusion. So, too,
with the Unionist Ministers who held office from 1895 to 1905. Veterans
such as Lord Chaplin, Lord George Hamilton and Lord Lansdowne enjoy
respect, but they do not sway public opinion, and are debarred by age
from active leadership and office. Lord Midleton stood aside to make
way for younger men when the Coalition Government was formed, and Lord
Selborne is perhaps the only Conservative statesman who held office
before 1906 who has any chance of sitting in a future Cabinet.
It was not only an age of endings; it was also an age of beginnings,
fresh and sometimes false starts, both as regards men and measures.
It witnessed the coming of the Death Duties in 1894, when Sir William
Harcourt's "Radical Budget," by equalizing the charges on real and
personal property, paved the way for the more drastic legislation
introduced by the Liberals in 1906 and the following years. This was
Harcourt's greatest achievement, and perhaps the most notable effort
in constructive policy of the short-lived Liberal administration; for
the second Home Rule Bill was dropped on its rejection by the Peers.
Under the Unionist administrations of 1895-1905 Mr. Joseph Chamberlain,
as Colonial Secretary, and Mr. Wyndham, by his Irish Land Purchase
Act, rendered conspicuous service in the domain of Imperial and Home
policy. Yet at the culminating point of his popularity Mr. Chamberlain
left the Government to prosecute that Fiscal Campaign which broke up
the Government, broke down his strength, and ended a brilliant career
in enforced retirement. Mr. Wyndham's withdrawal from the Government,
owing to friction over Irish policy, closed in early middle age the
career of the most gifted and attractive politician of his generation.
[Illustration: "IL GIOCONDO"
The enigmatic smile of this Old Master distinguishes it from that other
National treasure, the "Bonar Lisa."]
From 1906 onwards we are confronted by the meteoric and Protean
personalities of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill, who
between them have held almost all the great offices of State, and
ranged over the whole spectrum of Party colours, and lastly of Lord
Birkenhead. Mr. Churchill's father had once called Mr. Gladstone "an
old man in a hurry." One wonders what Lord Randolph would have called
his son Winston, of whom it was said "he likes things to happen, and
when they don't happen he likes to make them happen." In comparison
with the discreet progress of Reform in the last century the pace
became fast and furious. The demands of organized Labour were conceded
in the Trade Disputes Bill of 1906--the greatest landmark in industrial
legislation of the last half-century--and in 1910 the People's Budget
led to the revolt and surrender of the House of Lords.
Yet concurrently with the democratic drift of Liberal finance and
social reform, the principle of a continuity of foreign policy,
initiated by Lord Rosebery, and continued by Lord Salisbury and Lord
Lansdowne, was faithfully maintained by Sir Edward Grey, whose sober
and frugal expositions contrasted strangely with the vivacity and
flamboyant rhetoric of his colleagues. The Anglo-French _Entente_ and
the Anglo-Japanese Alliance both came into being when Lord Lansdowne
was at the Foreign Office, and the influence of the Liberal Imperialist
group in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Cabinet secured a free hand for
the Foreign Minister. It is the fashion in some quarters to regard the
late King Edward as "the only begetter" of the _Entente_; it is at any
rate within the mark to credit him with having missed no opportunity of
fostering it by his tact and _bonhomie_. It was no easy task. When he
visited Paris in 1902 the official greetings were perfectly correct,
but the animosity aroused over the Boer war found vent in outrageous
and unseemly caricatures. England was then the most unpopular country
in the world; and in allaying this general distrust and dislike, the
personal relations of King Edward with foreign statesmen and rulers
wrought powerfully for goodwill and a better understanding.
[Illustration: STUDENTS ON THE MAKE
MR. F. E. SMITH: "Master of epigram--like me!"
MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: "Wrote a novel in his youth--like me!"
TOGETHER: "Travelled in the East--like us. How does it end?"
(Mr. W. F. Monypenny's official "Life of Disraeli" has just been
published.)]
[Sidenote: _Foes and Friends_]
Looking back, in the light of fuller knowledge, on the South African
war of 1899-1902, we cannot fail to recognize how narrowly we escaped
the active hostility of more than one European Power; how much we owe
to the wise magnanimity of the British Government in granting full
autonomy to the Transvaal in 1906--an act not only justified by the
sequel but approved by those who voted against it. It converted the
most formidable of those who fought against us into loyal servants of
the Empire in her hour of greatest need; it allayed the misgivings
of those at home who had opposed the Boer war, and it silenced the
criticisms of foreigners who had denounced our aim as the extermination
of a people rightly struggling to be free. Whatever views may be held
as to the origin of the Boer war--that it was forced on by mining
magnates, or that it was the inevitable result of a reactionary system
which threatened our hold on South Africa--it remains one of the very
few examples of a war which, in the long run, left things better than
they had been, and satisfied the aspirations of the majority of the
conquered. And if we did not learn all the lessons that we might have
learned from the military point of view, the experience was not thrown
away. The services of Kitchener, Plumer and Byng, to mention only three
out of scores of names, proved that what was comparatively a little war
was a true school of leadership for the greatest of all.
Great Britain's warlike operations throughout this period were
intra-Imperial, and the scale of the South African campaign, in which
from first to last we put 250,000 men into the field, dwarfed the
troubles in Ashanti and on the Indian frontier into insignificance.
That we kept out of all the other wars which convulsed the world
between 1892 and 1914 must be put down to good management as well as
good luck. It is remarkable to notice the steady if gradual convergence
of the war clouds on Europe, the drawing in of the war zone from the
circumference to the centre, beginning with the conflict between China
and Japan. The brief and inglorious Greco-Turkish war hardly counts,
and Europe was not physically engaged in the Spanish-American war,
where all the fighting was done in the New World. Politically its
significance was far-reaching, as revising the Monroe Doctrine and
enlarging the Imperial horizons of the United States. Politically,
again, the "Boxer" rising in China affected the European Powers, whose
competing interests in the "integrity of China" were not reconciled by
their joint expedition for the relief of the Legations in 1900. Here
again the fighting was in the Far East, as it was in the Russo-Japanese
war, if we except the "regrettable incident" of the Dogger Bank; and
Russia has always been as much an Oriental as a Western Power. But the
Russo-Japanese war shook Tsardom to its foundations, promoted Japan
to the status of a Great Power, and compensated her largely for the
intervention of Russia, Germany and France in robbing her of the spoils
of her victory over China. The European conflagration broke out in
1912 with the war of the Balkan League on Turkey. Victory crowned the
efforts of a righteous cause--the relief of oppressed nationalities
from the oppressions and exactions of a corrupt and tyrannous rule--but
was wasted by the internecine quarrels and irreconcilable demands of
the victors. Serbia, who had lived down much of the odium excited by
the barbarous murders of Alexander and Draga, and had borne more than
her share of the war against Turkey, was isolated, partly by her own
intransigence, mainly by the greed, the diplomatic manoeuvres and
the treachery of her allies, and in her isolation fell a victim to the
dynastic ambitions of Austria. The assassination of the Crown Prince
Ferdinand at Sarajevo was the excuse for Austria's ultimatum to Serbia,
the proximate cause of the Great War of 1914. Whether engineered
in Vienna or not, the murder secured the removal of an heir whose
succession to the throne of Austria-Hungary was looked upon with grave
suspicion by a powerful group in Austria who had no desire to upset the
House of Hapsburg but profoundly distrusted the Crown Prince. In the
homely phrase Sarajevo killed two birds with one stone. It eliminated
an uncertain and unpopular prince, and furnished Austria with an
opportunity for gratifying her long-standing hostility to Serbia. But
there was a third and bigger bird; for the complicity of Germany in
dispatching the Ultimatum is no matter for surmise. Without her support
and pressure it would never have been sent.
[Illustration: THE ROAD TO RUIN]
[Sidenote: _Punch on World Politics_]
Confronted on all sides by problems of such magnitude and far-reaching
importance, it is not to be wondered at if _Punch_--primarily a comic
journal--failed to gauge their full significance, or to preserve an
attitude of inflexible consistency in his comments. There was always
a certain divergence between his editorial policy as expressed in the
cartoons and the comments of individual members of his staff. This
elasticity made for impartiality in the main; but it became somewhat
perplexing at the time of the Boer war, when a general support of
the Government was combined with very sharp criticism of Lord Milner.
Yet if _Punch_ here and elsewhere spoke with more than one voice, his
views on high policy, international relations and home affairs exhibit
a certain general uniformity and continuity. He supported both the
_Entente_ and the alliance with Japan. The spasm of irritation over the
Fashoda incident soon passed; he resented the intervention of Russia
and Germany which robbed Japan of the fruits of her victory over China,
and his sympathies were unmistakably with Japan in the war with Russia.
_Punch_ was consistently and increasingly critical of the Kaiser, while
perhaps over-ready to dissociate his temper from that not only of the
German people but of the educated classes; he was also consistently
alive to the menace of German competition in naval armaments and trade,
though by no means disposed to acquit British merchants and workmen
from a provocative lethargy. Towards America, _Punch's_ attitude
shows a progressive benevolence. The Venezuela incident and President
Cleveland's message at the beginning of this period brought us within
measurable distance of a rupture, happily averted by negotiation, as
the later and less serious difficulty over the Alaska boundary was
averted by arbitration. One may fairly say that _Punch's_ relief at
the pacific adjustment of these outstanding questions was far greater
than his sensitiveness on the point of national honour. He did not
refrain from the use of the word "filibustering" in connexion with
the Spanish-American war, in which the gallantry of Cervera went far
to enlist sympathy on the beaten side; but with the accession to the
Presidency of Mr. Roosevelt, a man in many ways after _Punch's_ own
heart, though not exempt from criticism for his controversial methods,
a friendlier tone became apparent, and the historic "indiscretion" of
Admiral Sims's speech at the Guildhall in 1910 helped to create the
atmosphere of goodwill which rendered possible the fulfilment of his
prophecy.
On National Defence and the maintenance of our naval supremacy _Punch_
continued to speak with no uncertain voice. He applauded Lord Roberts's
patriotic but neglected warnings and his advocacy of universal military
service, and lent a friendly but not uncritical approval to the
Territorial Army scheme.
[Illustration: THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE
JOHN BULL: "Recruits coming in nicely, Sergeant?"
RECRUITING SERGEANT PUNCH: "No, Sir. The fact is, Mr. Bull, if
you can't make it better worth their while to enlist, you'll have to
shoulder a rifle yourself!"]
[Sidenote: _Gladstonian Home Rule_]
In regard to Ireland and Home Rule, after the rejection of the Home
Rule Bill of 1893 _Punch's_ independent support of the Liberals gave
place to a general support of the Unionist policy, tempered by a more
or less critical attitude towards Ulster. He cannot be blamed for
neglecting to note the obscure and academic beginnings of the Sinn Fein
movement, or for failing to forecast that triple alliance of Sinn Fein
with the old physical force party and the Labour extremists under
Larkin which led to the rebellion of Easter, 1916. The Government
expert, who devoted seven years to the neglect of his duties, was
sunk in unholy ignorance of all that was going on until the explosion
took place. For the rest, _Punch_ became increasingly critical of
the demands of Labour and the parochial outlook of its leaders;
increasingly antagonistic to the measures passed in satisfaction of
those demands. At the same time he devoted more space than ever to
satirizing, ridiculing, and castigating the excesses, extravagances
and eccentricities of "smart" society, the week-end pleasure hunt of
the idle rich, and all the other features which may be summed up in
the phrase, "England de Luxe." Pictorially his record reveals perhaps
more amusement than disgust at the carnival of frivolity which reached
its climax in the years before the war. The note of misgiving is not
lacking, but it is sounded less vehemently than in the 'eighties of the
last century. In the main _Punch's_ temper may be expressed, to borrow
from Bagehot, as an "animated moderation."
To turn from outlines to details, one is confronted in 1893 with Mr.
Gladstone's second attempt to solve a problem which Giraldus Cambrensis
pronounced insoluble seven centuries ago. _Punch's_ earlier cartoons
on the Home Rule Bill are negligible, but the difficulties of the
Premier's position are aptly shown in the picture of Gladstone as a
knight in armour on a perilous pathway between the Irish Nationalist
bog and the "last ditch" of Ulster. The accompanying text, modelled
on Bunyan, represents Mr. Gladstone as a Pilgrim relying as much on
tactics as the sword. The most genial reference to Ulster is that in
which she figures as the Widow Wadman asking Uncle Toby, "Now, Mr.
Bull, do you see any 'green' in my eye?" and Uncle Toby protests he
"can see nothing whatever of the sort." Otherwise _Punch's_ attitude is
unsympathetic, witness the use of the term "Ulsteria" and the epigram
on the second reading of the Bill, put, it is true, into the mouth of
"A rebellious Rad":--
Butchered--to make an Easter Holiday,
For Orangemen who yearn to have their say!
They've got political _delirium tremens_.
_Orange_? Nay, they're sour as unripe lemons!
In the "Essence of Parliament" little is said of the arguments,
but we get a glimpse of Lord Randolph Churchill's
return to the political arena and echoes of the unbridled
loquacity of Mr. Sexton. The cartoons are more instructive,
notably that on the introduction of the "Guillotine" by Gladstone,
with the G.O.M. as chief operator, Harcourt and
Morley as republican soldiers, and Amendments, as heads,
falling into a waste-paper basket. The fate of the measure is
neatly hit off in the "Little Billee" cartoon; Home Rule as
"Little Billee" is about to be massacred by the House of Lords,
represented by Salisbury and Hartington as chief villains.
"Little Billee" in the legend not only survived but attained
high distinction in after life; but it is hard to say whether
_Punch_ implied a similar resurrection for the Bill of 1893. But
whatever were his views on the merits of Home Rule, _Punch_
was decidedly critical of the Government's naval policy, and
when Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Morley had simultaneously made
seemingly irreconcilable speeches on the subject, he adroitly
invoked the shade of Cobden, who had, in certain conditions,
proclaimed himself a Big Navyite. _Punch_ fortified the
argument by a set of verses headed "Rule Britannia" and
ending with this stanza:--
Devotion to the needs of home
And claims parochial is not all.
Beware lest shades more darkling come
With gloomier writings on the wall.
Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons to careless trust should ne'er be slaves.
[Sidenote: _Mr. Gladstone and his Successor_]
Yet when Mr. Gladstone resigned the premiership, early in 1894,
_Punch's_ tribute is an unqualified eulogy of the "Lancelot of our
lists":--
"Unarm, _Eros_; the long day's task is done."
This is no _Antony_; here's a nobler one;
Yet like the Roman his great course is run.
From source to sea a fair full-flooded flow
Of stainless waters, swelling as they go,
Now widening broad in the sun's westering glow,
Broad widening to the ocean, whither all
The round world's fertilizing floods must fall,
The sweeping river with the streamlet small.
Hang up the sword! It struck its latest stroke,
A swashing one, there where the closed ranks broke
Into wild cheers that all the echoes woke.
That stroke, the last, was swift, and strong, and keen,
Now hang thou there, though sheathed, yet silver-clean,
For never felon stroke has dimmed thy sheen!
For thee, good knight and grey, whose gleaming crest
Leads us no longer, every generous breast
Breathes benediction on thy well-won rest.
The field looks bare without thee, and o'ercast
With dark and ominous shadows, and thy last
_Reveille_ was a rousing battle-blast!
But though with us the strife may hardly cease,
We wish thee, in well-earned late-coming ease,
Long happy years of honourable peace!
The "last stroke" referred to was doubtless the speech in which Mr.
Gladstone uttered his warning to the Lords, a warning translated into
action by the Parliament Act of 1910. Lord Rosebery, his successor,
came from the gilded chamber, and, in spite of his democratic record
and brilliant gifts, was not enthusiastically welcomed by the Liberal
Party. But _Punch_ had no misgivings at the moment and acclaimed
him in a cartoon in which he enters the lists, "from spur to plume
a star of tournament," with Harcourt as his squire, a reading of
their relations hardly borne out by the sequel. The Cabinet were not
a "band of brothers," and, as we have said above, the most notable
legislative feature of the Liberal administration was the "Radical
Budget" of Sir William Harcourt. _Punch's_ comment, in the cartoon "The
Depressed Dukes" and the verses on "The Stately Homes of England,"
combined prescience with a touch of malice. The Duke of Devonshire
is shown saying to the Duke of Westminster, "If this Budget passes,
I don't know how I am going to keep up Chatsworth," and the Duke of
Westminster replies, "If you come to that, we may consider ourselves
lucky if we can keep a tomb over our heads." Mr. Chamberlain's famous
phrase about "ransom" is recalled, in view of his _rapprochement_
to the Tories, to illustrate his falling away from Radicalism, and
_Punch's_ references to him are, for a while, critical to the verge of
hostility. Sambourne's picture of the interesting development of the
"Josephus Cubicularius (orchidensis)" exhibits his evolution from the
manufacturer of screws, the republican and the radical, to the patriot,
society pet, and full-blown Conservative with a peerage looming in
the future; while in the "Essence of Parliament" he is ironically
complimented on investing the High Court of Westminster with "the tone
and atmosphere of the auction-room."
On the other hand, _Punch_ recognized that a disposition to add to our
Imperial responsibilities was no longer a Tory monopoly. Uganda was
annexed in 1894, and John Bull is seen finding a black baby on his
doorstep: "What, _another_! Well, I suppose I must take it in," the
explanatory verses being headed "_Prestige oblige_." The assassination
of President Carnot prompts a tribute to France:--
Sister in sorrow now as once in arms,
Of old fair enemy in many a field--
an obvious adaptation of Sir Philip Sidney's "that sweet enemy France."
But in the realm of foreign affairs the most striking event was the
Chino-Japanese war. Here _Punch's_ sympathies are clearly revealed in
his cartoon, "Jap the Giant-killer," with an up-to-date fairy-tale
text; in the picture of Japan as the Infant Phenomenon lecturing on
the Art of War to John Bull, Jonathan, the Kaiser and other crowned
heads; and in the condemnation of the jealous intervention of Russia
and Germany to rob Japan, who had "played a square game," of the fruits
of victory. The death of the Tsar Alexander III in November, 1894, is
commemorated in a cartoon in which Peace is chief mourner. _Punch_, as
we have seen, had not been enthusiastic over the gravitation of Russia
towards a French alliance; but no official declaration of its existence
was made until 1897, though it was mentioned publicly by M. Ribot in
1895.
[Illustration: "WHO SAID--'ATROCITIES'?"
(After the popular engraving)
"Old as I am my feelings have not been deadened in regard to matters
of such a dreadful description." (_Mr. Gladstone's Birthday speech at
Hawarden on the Armenian atrocities_.)]
[Sidenote: _The Seven Lord Roseberys_]
The Rosebery Cabinet resigned in June, 1895. _Punch's_ admiration
for Lord Rosebery had steadily waned during his brief tenure of the
Premiership, and distrust of his versatility is revealed in the
versified comment on Mr. St. Loe Strachey's article in the _Nineteenth
Century_. There the "Seven Ages of Rosebery" are traced, in the manner
of Jaques, from the Home Ruler onward through the phase of London
County Council chairman to Premier, and Sphinx _à la_ Dizzy, ending:--
Last scene of all
That ends this strange eventful history,
Newmarket Rosebery, _Ladas_-owner, Lord--
_Sans_ grit, _sans_ nous, _sans_ go, _sans_ everything.
Lord Salisbury's third Cabinet was reinforced by the inclusion of
the Liberal-Unionists--the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Goschen and Mr.
Chamberlain. It was a powerful combination, but suffered in the long
run from the inherent drawbacks of all coalitions, though the course
of events postponed the inevitable disruption. Before the Liberals
left office, Mr. Gladstone had emerged from his retirement to denounce
the "Armenian Atrocities" and urge British intervention. Here, as in
earlier years, _Punch_ sided with the advanced Liberals, rejoiced
in his well-known cartoon, "Who said 'Atrocities'?" that there was
life in the old dog (Mr. Gladstone) yet; welcomed the adhesion of the
Duke of Argyll to Mr. Gladstone's campaign in another cartoon of the
"Old Crusaders: Bulgaria, 1876, Armenia, 1895"; and denounced the
unchangeable ferocity of the Turk. When the Bishop of Hereford invited
his clergy to send up petitions respecting the Armenian atrocities,
one vicar refused to protest against Turkish crimes, on the ground
that the English Government was exercising all its ingenuity to
persecute and plunder Christians here. This referred to the Liberal
Government's Welsh Disestablishment Bill. _Punch_ ironically declared
that the vicar's logic was as convincing as his Christian sympathy was
admirable. On the return of the Unionists to power, _Punch_ continued
to urge strong measures, and lamented the powerlessness of the "Great
Powers" to bring about reforms in Turkish administration.
[Sidenote: _The Kiel Canal_]
The retirement of Mr. Peel from the Speakership afforded _Punch_ a
fitting opportunity for recognizing his great qualities in maintaining
the dignity of his position, his "awesome mien and terrible voice" in
administering rebukes, and for joining in the chorus of congratulation
to the new Conductor of the Parliamentary Orchestra, Mr. Gully. As
for the protest of Lord Curzon, Lord Wolmer and Mr. St. John Brodrick
against the exclusion of peers from the House of Commons, _Punch_ dealt
faithfully with the movement in his comments on the "Pirate Peers."
Better still is the cartoon in which a bathing woman addresses a little
boy wearing a coronet, and battering with his toy spade at the door
of a bathing-machine labelled House of Commons. "Come along, Master
Selborne," she says, "and take your dip like a little nobleman." This
incident of May, 1895, is hardly worth mentioning save as an example
of self-protective insurance against future legislation aimed at
the power of the Upper House. For years to come _Punch's_ political
preoccupations were almost exclusively with questions of Imperial
policy and international relations. The opening of the Kiel Canal
practically coincided with the return to power of Lord Salisbury, and
is celebrated by _Punch_ in the same number in which he ironically
adapts Shakespeare's _Coriolanus_ to illustrate the alliance of Lord
Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain. _Punch's_ representative went out on
the _Tantallon Castle_ with Mr. Gladstone, and gives a lively account
of the junketings on board and on shore, and the entertainment of
sovereigns and local magnates. In more serious vein _Punch_ editorially
hails the canal as a "Path of Peace," banishing misgivings and
remembrances of Denmark and France:--
Not war alone, but trade, will take the track
That shuns the wild and stormy Skager-Rak;
And may Brunsbüttel's now familiar name
Be little linked with Empire's big war-game;
May battle-echoes in the Baltic cease;
And the Canal be a new Path of Peace.
A couple of months later our friendly relations with Italy inspired a
cartoon in which Britannia congratulates Italy, but advises her to be
less visionary and more practical. Italy's finances were causing her
trouble; otherwise the advice showed an inability to sound the springs
of Italian policy. _Punch's_ pacific dreams were dispelled in the
autumn by the renewed troubles in Ashanti. Britannia, as he put it,
expected more than an umbrella this time; King Coffee's umbrella had
cost us £900,000 in 1874. Happily the expedition was well organized
and its immediate purpose executed, though a further expedition became
necessary in 1900. Far graver anxieties threatened us from Africa at
the close of the year, and since _Punch's_ criticisms of and comments
on the successive phases of controversy and conflict betray a certain
amount of variation and even inconsistency, it is as well to point
out that the unfriendly tone he had shown towards "Joe" in previous
years had largely abated upon Mr. Chamberlain's accession to office
as Colonial Secretary. In the account of a dinner held in the late
autumn of 1895 to celebrate the opening of railway communication
between Natal and the Cape, Mr. Chamberlain's speech is extolled as
"splendidly pitched, admirably phrased, and full of the Palmerstonian
ring." Simultaneously in "The Imperial Federalists' Vade Mecum" _Punch_
discourses on the difficulties, no longer insuperable, which attended
on the translation into reality of that dream of Imperial Federation
which had once been regarded as a nightmare.
[Sidenote: _Dr. Jameson's Popularity_]
The abortive Jameson Raid at the close of December, 1895, came as
a bombshell; and _Punch_, in his "Tug of War" cartoon, shows the
Uitlander trying to pull the British Lion into the Transvaal, while
Mr. Chamberlain is pulling him back. Canning's well-known lines on
"The Pilot that weathered the Storm" are rewritten in honour of Mr.
Chamberlain's handling of the crisis. A few months earlier _Punch_ had
ridiculed the Kaiser for his arbitrary absolutism in sending to prison
a private University teacher "for writing in praise of a certain kind
of soap." The famous telegram to President Krüger was dealt with more
audaciously in an apocryphal letter purporting to have been sent by the
Queen to her grandson:--
MEIN LIEBER WILLY,--Dies ist aber über alle Berge. Solch
eine confounded Impertinenz have ich nie gesehen. The fact of the
matter is that Du ein furchtbarer Schwaggerer bist. Warum kannst
Du nie ruhig bleiben, why can't you hold your blessed row? Musst
Du deinen Finger in jeder Torte haben? Was it for this that I made
you an Admiral meiner Flotte and allowed you to rig yourself out in
einer wunderschönen Uniform mit einem gekokten Hut? If you meant mir
any of your blooming cheek zu geben why did you make your grandmamma
Colonel eines Deutschen Cavallerie Regiments? Du auch bist Colonel
of a British Cavallerie Regiment, desto mehr die Schade, the more's
the pity. Als Du ein ganz kleiner Bube warst have ich Dich oft
tüchtig gespankt, and now that you've grown up you ought to be
spanked too.... Du weist nicht wo Du bist, you dunno where you are,
and somebody must teach you. Is Bismarck quite well? Das ist ein
kolossaler Kerl, nicht wahr? So lange. Don't be foolish any more.
Deine Dich liebende,
GRANDMAMMA.
This was followed up by the picture of the Kaiser as "Fidgety Phil."
But _Punch_ was already alive to the widespread hostility to England
which prevailed on the Continent, and did not shrink from suggesting
that we were ready at need to take up the challenge. He admitted the
popularity of "Dr. Jim," but irony underlies his dialogue between the
dubious Londoner, who asks:--
"How will they treat this Doctor Jim,
Who doesn't return a winner?"--
and the Hearty Citizen who replies:--
"There's only one way of treating _him_."--
"And that is?"--"Give him a dinner."
_Punch_ is ironically sympathetic, again, in his comment on the
statement that "About 130 letters awaited Dr. Jameson ... many of
them containing offers of marriage." A few months later, however,
_Punch_ supported the demand for his release on account of ill-health.
The cartoon based on Mr. Rhodes's resignation in May is headed,
"The Pity of it." South Africa (as Othello) says to him: "Cassio, I
love thee; but never more be officer of mine." _Punch_ adds as his
authority a statement in _The Times_: "Mr. Rhodes has no longer any
power of assailing or menacing the Transvaal. The military authority
in the Company's territory is in the hands of Sir Richard Martin.
The administration is in the hands of Lord Grey." It was about the
same time that _Punch_ published a design for a statue of Krüger, in
which the British Lion is shown in chains while Chamberlain kneels
obsequiously to the President.
[Illustration: THE RHODES COLOSSUS
Striding from Cape Town to Cairo]
South Africa was not our only source of anxiety in 1896. Indeed,
it may be said to have temporarily receded into the background as
a storm centre. For our strained relations with the United States
over the Venezuelan arbitration had been brought to a critical stage
by President Cleveland's message. The conciliatory speeches of Mr.
Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour in January led _Punch_ to represent them
in the act of placating the American Eagle with caresses and sugar.
He was better inspired in his open letter to Mr. W. D. Howells, the
distinguished American writer, recognizing his generous and courageous
efforts to create a better mutual understanding between the two
countries. In particular he saluted the "Golden words" in which Mr.
Howells criticized his own countrymen:--
[Sidenote: _Letter to Mr. Howells_]
"What I chiefly object to in our patriotic emotion, however, was
not that it was so selfish but that it was so insensate, so stupid.
It took no account of things infinitely more precious than national
honour, such as humanity, civilization, and
'the long result of time'
which must suffer in a conflict between peoples like the English and
the Americans. For the sake of having our ships beat their ships, our
poor fellows slaughter their poor fellows, we were all willing, for
one detestable instant at least, to have the rising hopes of mankind
dashed, and the sense of human brotherhood blunted in the hearts of
the foremost people of the world."
But is there, as you say, "in the American heart a hatred of England,
which glutted itself in her imagined disaster and disgrace when we
all read the President's swaggering proclamation, in which he would
not yield to the enemy so far as even to write good English"? Is
there to be no forgiveness, are we never to cancel old scores and
begin our international book-keeping, if I may so term it, on a clean
page? I do not think our people hate yours. Your dash, your pluck,
your humour, your keen common sense, your breezy and inexhaustible
energy, your strength and broad capacity for government, all these
qualities command and obtain from us a sincere tribute of admiration.
If you hate us, we must submit to that melancholy condition, but never
submit in such a fashion as to cease from honest effort to abate
and in the end to remove all hatred. Blood, as one of your naval
captains[1] said on a memorable occasion, is thicker than water. So
saying, he dashed in to the help of our sorely pressed ships. Let us
then call a truce to petty and malignant carping, and join hands in
an alliance dependent not upon written treaties, but upon the noble
sympathy of two great nations engaged in the same work of civilization
and progress. You, Sir, speaking for others, I trust, as well as for
yourself, have set us an example.
Believe me, yours in all cordial friendship,
PUNCH.
[Footnote 1: Josiah Tatnall, flag-officer of the East India Squadron in
1856.]
It was in the same spirit that _Punch_ welcomed a remark in the New
York _Morning Press_: "After all the English people are our people,
and we are theirs," and deprecated as suicidal any efforts to forsake
a common heritage and rend asunder a family tree. The tension passed,
thanks to diplomacy and arbitration, and towards the close of the year
we find _Punch_ welcoming Mr. McKinley on his election as President,
the Shade of Washington (with a somewhat bulbous nose) congratulating
Columbia: "'Sound Money' is the best policy." Meanwhile the expedition
to Khartum had been decided on; the House of Commons, reassured by a
confident speech from Mr. Chamberlain, having approved of the forward
policy by a two to one vote, in spite of the misgivings of Mr. Morley,
Sir William Harcourt and Sir Charles Dilke. _Punch_, mindful of 1884,
registered his approval in the cartoon in which the Shade of Gordon
in the desert utters the one word, "Remember!" Wars and rumours of
wars did not distract _Punch's_ attention from the peaceful rivalry of
commerce. He was still much concerned by Germany's competition, which
he typified in his cartoon of British Trade as the old woman whose
petticoats were "cut all round about," while she was asleep, by a
German pedlar. And the commercial significance of Li Hung Chang's visit
is not overlooked in the generally farcical handling of that extremely
astute Oriental. In the cartoon "China in the Bull Shop," rival
Continental shopkeepers, who had got no orders out of him, are consumed
with envy and curiosity. If _Punch_ is to be believed, their envy was
ill-founded. Li Hung Chang displayed a boundless inquisitiveness,
but there was "nothing doing" in the way of business between him and
his hosts. _Punch_ drew mainly on his imagination for the events of
the visit, and ascribed to Li Hung Chang a number of topical Chinese
proverbs. The best of them--"Half an official welcome is better than an
ill-bred mobbing"--refers to his arrival in the "dead" season.
[Sidenote: _Two Modern Hamlets_]
Lord Rosebery resigned the leadership of the Liberal Party in June.
While still in office he had estranged the Radical stalwarts by his
Imperialist foreign policy and his heretical view of the necessity of
converting the "predominant partner," England, before attempting to
revive Home Rule. His Government, as one of his colleagues put it, were
condemned to the task of "ploughing the sands." In the intervening year
the gulf that severed him from the stalwarts and the Nonconformist
conscience had been widened by his refusal to join in Mr. Gladstone's
Armenian crusade, and henceforth he decided to "plough a lonely
furrow." In later years he made occasional dramatic interventions,
but his official career, like that of his contemporary at Eton, Lord
Randolph Churchill, closed before he was fifty.
[Illustration: THE CHESTERFIELD HAMLET
LORD R-S-B-RY (in leading rôle):
"The 'Party's' out of joint;--O, cursèd spite,
That ever I was 'asked' to set it right!"
Act i, scene 5, _Mr. Punch's edition_.
]
Our relations with the United States were bettered at the opening
of 1897 by the signing of the Arbitration Treaty adjusting the
Venezuelan question. In Europe events did not conduce to diminish
our unpopularity. It was the year of the brief Greco-Turkish war,
which revived old divisions of opinion at home. _Punch_ was no lover
of the Turk; he realized the difficulties of King George, whom he
depicted as Hamlet at Athens, recognizing (like Lord Rosebery) that
the "time was out of joint" and deploring "the cursed spite that he
was ever born to set it right"; but he supported Lord Salisbury in
severely rebuking the hundred M.P.'s who had sent the King a message of
encouragement. The verses, modelled on Tennyson's "Charge of the Light
Brigade," disparaged the message as mere gaseous talk, which did not
mean business, and was bound to end in smoke. Criticism of the Kaiser
becomes more animated than moderate; the frequent prosecutions for
_lèse-majesté_, and the famous pamphlet, in which Professor Quidde of
Munich ingeniously satirized the Kaiser's megalomania in an historical
essay on the aberrations of Caligula, inspire a caustic open letter
to Wilhelm II, the gist of which is that, though old enough to know
better, he was still the victim of the capricious extravagance of
youth:--
Formerly I imagined that throughout Germany, and from time to time in
Russia, Austria, or in Italy, an imperial but soaringly human boy was
lifting his glass and crying, "Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!" amid the clatter of
swords and the admiring shouts of a profusely-decorated soldiery. Now
I know that a stout gentleman is doing these things, and reducing his
hearers to an abyss of melancholy at his dismal failure in dignity. A
boy who played fantastic tricks with the telegraph-wires incurred but
a mild censure. What shall be said of a middle-aged and pompous party
whose pleasure it is to play practical jokes that set two nations by
the ears?
[Sidenote: _The "Raid" and its Aftermath_]
Yours is a great inheritance, greatly won by heroic deeds. Your
people are by nature the mildest and most loyal, and by tradition and
education the most thoughtful, in Europe. But mild and loyal as they
are their minds must rise in revolt against a sovereign who reproduces
in the crudest form the stale theories of divine right and arbitrary
government, whose one notion of administration is to increase his
stupendous military forces by taxation while diminishing the number
of his reasonable critics by imprisonment. You have travelled, cocked
hat in hand, to capital after capital, you have dismissed Bismarck,
you have made yourself into the tin god of a great monarchy, you have
shouted, reviewed, toasted, speechified, you have donned a thousand
different uniforms, you have dabbled in the drama, you have been
assisted in the design of allegorical cartoons, you have composed
hymns to Ægir, and Heaven knows how many others--and to-day the
result of all your restless and misdirected energies is that you have
added not only to your army but also to the foreign ill-wishers of
your country and to her internal distractions. And at this moment,
in spite of the millions of men and money that go to form her army,
Germany is weaker than she has been at any moment since the Empire was
proclaimed at Versailles. This feat, Sir, you have accomplished, and
such credit as attaches to it is yours alone. Where and how do you
propose to end?
In lighter vein but with equal disrespect _Punch_ satirizes the
instructions to Prince Henry on starting with the naval expedition to
Kiao-Chow. In particular _Punch_ dwells, not unfairly, on the Kaiser's
insistence on the sanctity of his mission. It was to be a Holy war:--
To preach abroad in each distinct locality
The gospel of my hallowed personality.
Another was added to the long list of Indian Frontier wars in the
Tirah campaign. _Punch_ did well to recognize the loyalty of native
officers, N.C.O.s and men, while saluting the achievements of the
Gordon Highlanders in his verses to their Commander, Colonel Mathias.
The men were "doing splendidly," but as Colonel _Punch_ says in one
cartoon, "Yes, they always do; but is this 'forward policy' worth all
this?" And a similar misgiving is revealed in an article implying that
so-called "peaceful missions" to barbarian kings were too often closely
followed up by punitive expeditions. The "repercussions" of the Jameson
Raid were not overlooked. _Punch_ made merry over President Krüger's
famous claim for "moral and intellectual damages"; but his criticisms
are not confined to the Boers. The proceedings of the South African
Committee of Inquiry prompted a parallel between Warren Hastings
and Cecil Rhodes, in which the Indian proconsul remarks to the new
Empire-builder: "_I_ succeeded and was impeached; you fail--and are
called as a witness."
Of the second or Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, the last great
State pageant of her reign, one may say that it was more than a great
act of veneration and loyalty; it was a celebration of Imperial
expansion and solidarity which formed a reassuring interlude on the eve
of events that were destined to test that solidarity to the utmost. For
1898 was the year of Fashoda, of the conflict over the "open door" in
China, and of the Spanish-American war. I put Fashoda first, because
the incident came perilously near embroiling us in war with France.
It was not an isolated expression of French resentment, since the
general attitude of British public opinion over the Dreyfus affair had
greatly inflamed Anglophobia in France. _Punch_, like the majority of
Englishmen, was strongly Dreyfusard. Early in the year he published his
cartoon, based on Holman Hunt's picture, in which Zola figures as the
"Dreyfus Scapegoat"--a reference to the famous "J'accuse" article--and
a similar spirit is shown in the "Dreyfus Dictionary," in which strong
hostility is shown to all the leading actors on the anti-Dreyfus side.
On a large and sincerely patriotic section of the French public,
exasperated by what they considered to be a gratuitous interference in
a domestic affair, _Punch's_ comments on the occupation of Fashoda in
the Sudan by Colonel Marchand operated like vitriol on a raw wound.
They certainly were not flattering to one, who if not a very discreet
was a very gallant soldier. Beginning with a farcical burlesque of the
stealthy invasion of the French, they go on from ridicule to contempt.
"Marchez, Marchand," says John Bull to the Colonel, ironically
congratulating him on having had a "nice little scientific trip." The
last straw was the cartoon in which John Bull says: "Go away, go away,"
to a French organ-grinder with a little monkey in uniform perched on
his instrument, which is labelled Fashoda. The organ-grinder says,
"Eh? What you give me if I go?" and John Bull retorts: "I'll give
you something if you _don't_." A "furious Gaul" broke _Mr. Punch's_
windows, and now we can understand and forgive the retaliation. It may
have been an added sting to say, as _Punch_ did on the best authority,
that Colonel Marchand had been really saved from the Dervishes by
Kitchener's success at Omdurman. Anyhow, it was fortunate that Lord
Kitchener, who had served with the French in 1870 in Chanzy's army, was
in charge of the negotiations with Colonel Marchand on the spot. The
French Government did not give way until six weeks had passed, during
which Irish members had avowed their sympathy with France, and _Punch_
addressed her with serious warnings and even bellicose threats.
For the peaceful adjustment of what looked like a _casus belli_, we
certainly owe more to Lord Kitchener than to _Punch_. The battle of
Omdurman, fought on September 2, 1898, was the culminating point of
a carefully planned campaign which had lasted more than two years,
and was duly celebrated in _Punch's_ cartoon of the re-occupation of
Khartum, with the statue of Gordon, avenged after thirteen years, in
the background. Lord Kitchener lost no time in issuing his appeal for
funds to erect the Gordon Memorial College in Khartum, to which _Punch_
dedicated his cartoon of "Dreaming True." The agreement delimiting the
respective spheres of England and France in North Africa was not signed
till January 19, 1899, but Punch had foreshadowed the issue in his
cartoon of John Bull as a "Fixture" in Egypt, his features replacing
the battered countenance of the Sphinx.
[Illustration: "FOR QUEEN AND EMPIRE!!"]
It cannot be said that _Punch_ was any more conciliatory to the United
States over the Spanish-American war than he had been to France over
Fashoda. He is sympathetic to the young King of Spain, shown as a
small boy on the throne threatened by Bellona and Revolution. Both in
prose and verse he is distinctly hostile to the U.S.A., ironically
crediting them with no desire to annex Cuba, but talking almost in the
same breath of "filibustering" and "spread-eagling." And when Cuba was
acquired _Punch_ professes to regard it as anything but an unmixed
blessing. Spain is shown saying to Uncle Sam: "Well, you wanted him!
You've got him! And I wish you joy of him!"--Cuba being represented as
an ill-conditioned little coloured boy. _Punch's_ reading of the Treaty
of Peace was that Uncle Sam would agree to anything if Spain would take
Cuba back; while in another cartoon European resentment of American
intrusion into European politics is typified by a very "sniffy" Europa
asking Uncle Sam if he is "any relation of the late Colonel Monroe."
All this did not make for good blood, or the promotion of that friendly
understanding applauded in _Punch's_ letter to Mr. Howells, but it
may be pleaded in extenuation that some of the sanest and wisest and
noblest Americans were not at all happy about the Spanish war, and
that Charles Eliot Norton openly denounced the mixture of hypocrisy and
thoughtlessness with which his countrymen had plunged into it.
[Sidenote: _The "Open Door" in China_]
[Illustration: "GOD SAVE THE KING!"]
The conflicting commercial interests of various Powers in China are
also the subject of a good deal of frank comment at the expense of
Russia and Germany. In one cartoon the British Lion is shown with a
barrow-load of goods denied entrance by the Bear at the "free port" of
Talienwan. In another, the "Open Door" is reduced to a farce, being
occupied by the Bear armed to the teeth and a German entrenched in
tariffs. A third, entitled "The Sentinels," is based on the view that
the occupation of Port Arthur left us no alternative but to occupy
Wei-hai-wei in order to restore the equilibrium upset by Russia. The
powerlessness of the young Emperor, who had proposed a scheme of
reforms, is clearly indicated in the dialogue in which the "Son of
Heaven" discusses his Aunt--the formidable Dowager-Empress. _Punch_ had
a friendly greeting for the young Queen of Holland on the attainment of
her majority, referring to the House of Orange as a link with our Royal
family; but for the most part wherever he saw a crowned head he hit
it. The _lèse-majesté_ campaign in Germany had led to the prosecution
of Herr Trojan, the editor of the _Kladderadatsch_, to whom _Punch_
offered his "Prosit," regretting that there was not also the companion
offence of _Humanitätsbeleidigung_ for which punishment could be
awarded to "the Imperial buffoon." This was the year in which the young
Tsar Nicholas put forward his proposal for general disarmament, but
_Punch's_ comments are very much on the lines of his satirical report
of an imaginary meeting of the Nations summoned by the Arbitration
League in 1894. Everybody was anxious to disarm so long as somebody
else set the example. This scepticism now finds vent in the cartoon
in which Peace suggests disarmament to Vulcan, understanding that the
Tsar's proposal had already seriously interfered with his trade. Vulcan
promptly undeceives her. He never was busier--and on orders for Russia.
The assassination of the Empress of Austria in September passed without
mention in _Punch_, an omission probably accidental rather than
deliberate, since she was popular in England as a great sportswoman. She
was also a generous and enlightened patron of the arts, unconventional
in her ways, blameless in her life, yet doomed by malign fate to
the supreme infelicity of grandeur.
[Sidenote: _Gladstone and "C.-B."_]
_Punch_ certainly missed a great opportunity for a chivalrous tribute
to a lady whose unhappiness was greater than her rank, to say nothing
of a text for a sermon on the notorious ineptitude of assassins in
the choice of victims. Still, it was a harder theme than that which
inspired _Punch's_ most notable memorial verses in 1898--the death of
Mr. Gladstone. The writer contrasts his end with that of those who
have died in their early prime or the ripeness of their manhood, and
continues:--
But you, O veteran of a thousand fights,
Whose toil had long attained its perfect end--
Death calls you not as one that claims his rights,
But gently as a friend.
For though that matchless energy of mind
Was firm to front the menace of decay,
Your bodily strength on such a loss declined
As only Death could stay.
So then with you 'tis well, who after pain,
After long pain, have reached your rest at last;
But we--ah, when shall England mould again
This type of splendour past?
Noble in triumph, noble in defeat,
Leader of hopes that others held forlorn,
Strong in the faith that looks afar to meet
The flush of Freedom's morn.
* * * * *
And now, with all your armour laid aside,
Swift eloquence your sword, and, for your shield,
The indomitable courage that defied
The fortune of the field--
As in the noontide of your high command,
So in the final hour when darkness fell,
Submissive still to that untiring Hand
That orders all things well--
We bear you to your resting-place apart
Between the ranks where ancient foe and friend,
Kin by a common sorrow at the heart
Silent together bend.
A new leader of the Liberal Party emerged in 1899 in Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman. Sir William Harcourt is shown wishing his successor
joy--rather ironically--and Mr. Balfour, in the cartoon of "The
Wrestlers," acknowledges the strength of his opponent after their
first round. "C.-B.'s" promotion to leadership coincided with the
discussion of the Tsar's disarmament proposals, which the Liberal
leader was destined to revive later on, and in May, representatives
of Great Britain attended the Hague Conference convened on the Tsar's
initiative. The enthusiasm which _Punch_ had displayed a generation
earlier over the Paris Conference had now evaporated, and his
contributions to the subject are marked by farcical scepticism. The
Tsar and the Kaiser are shown in one picture holding, at some uncertain
date in the future, an imaginary review of what remains of the Russian
Army, the soldiers resembling Stigginses armed with umbrellas.
_Punch's_ twelve suggestions are a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the Tsar's
idea, the first being a proposal to postpone the coming into operation
of the new rules for 1,000 years. The list of "Some Probable Agenda"
for the Hague Conference, published when it was already sitting, is
pure burlesque. For example: "Declarations of war shall in future be
abolished as being calculated to wound the feelings of opponents." In
the same number there is a large picture of Imperial Bruin drinking
to Peace, coupling the toast with the name of Victoria, Empress of
India (the Queen had just celebrated her eightieth birthday), with a
batch of papers, labelled "Further demands in China," behind his back.
The political atmosphere was not conducive to the calm discussion of
international peace. _Punch's_ espousal of the cause of Dreyfus became
increasingly vehement and provocative. In May, under the heading "_A
bas la Vérité_," Truth is shown saying "I must get out" (of her well),
while the French generals reply: "Not if we know it." A month later, in
"At Last," Tenniel depicts indignant Justice triumphing with the Sword
of Revision, and trampling Lies and Forgery under foot. The universal
preoccupation with the topic is illustrated in Phil May's picture
of the little street boy crying because his father "has got Drifus
fever." In September, Napoleon's shade is shown scornfully surveying
a group of degenerate generals eagerly discussing a "secret dossier",
and saying, "_Vive l'armée!_ Yes! But it was not with generals like
you that I won my campaigns!" In the face of death _Punch_ has always
shown restraint, and, whether from ignorance or of set purpose, wrote
of President Faure:--
He sought to serve his country's needs
And dying died with harness on.
[Sidenote: _The Verdict of Rennes_]
But the address to France "in memory of the verdict of Rennes" amounts
to an indictment of the whole nation:--
Who speaks of pardon? Nay, for France there's none,
Nor can be never till the damnèd blot
Be wiped away and expiation done.
Then, not till then,
May be renewed the bonds that once have been,
Since we, whatever else, are honest men.
Meanwhile, we know you not!
Go, hide your face until your heart is clean.
_Punch_, it is true, spoke with a different voice on the same page, but
it is doubtful whether his levity was calculated to heal the effect of
his self-righteous indignation:--
SOME FURTHER SELF-DENYING ORDINANCES
To be observed by those who wish to testify their righteous
indignation at the Rennes verdict by boycotting next year's Paris
Exposition, and in the most material and convincing manner to bring
about the complete rehabilitation of the unfortunate prisoner.
It is proposed--
That no more French leave shall be taken by individuals desirous of
absenting themselves from their duties or annexing other persons'
property. Undergraduates will faithfully attend every lecture,
city clerks will bury no more aunts, cooks will cease to entertain
policemen, and there will be a close time for burglary, kleptomania
and kissing under the mistletoe.
That the use of French chalk shall be abandoned in ballrooms, and
dancing given up altogether, except on village greens.
That "Frenchmen," alias red-legged partridges, shall be shot on sight,
and given to the retriever to eat.
That elbow-grease shall be substituted for French polish.
That French beans shall be cut and given the cold shoulder at table.
That the French language (which at the present moment chiefly consists
of the verb _conspuer_) shall be tabooed, except in the case of
solecisms like _nom de plume_, _double entendre_, _à l'outrance_,
and so forth. _Café_, _coupé_ and similar words shall be pronounced
"caif," "coop," etc., as in Canada. _Dépôt_ shall be "depott";
_sang froid_, _au revoir_, _tableaux vivants_ and the like shall be
similarly anglicized. Boulogne to be called "Boolong," if mentioned at
all, which is inadvisable. No more bull-fights to be attended.
That French grey shall in future mean, as circumstances demand, either
black or white.
Towards America _Punch_ shows a tempered benevolence in his open letter
to President McKinley, whom he warns against the new-fangled policy of
Imperial expansion. His welcome to Mr. Choate, on his appointment as
American Ambassador, is entirely cordial: "There are only two things
necessary to make your visit a success. Don't believe all you hear, and
read your _Punch_ regularly." I do not know whether Mr. Choate took the
second piece of advice or not; the first was quite unnecessary. He was
a huge success as an Ambassador, though his chief claim on the abiding
affection of England rests on his noble and self-sacrificing exertions,
in extreme old age and up to the day of his death, in furthering the
cause of the Allies and strengthening the brotherhood in arms of
America and Great Britain.
[Sidenote: _Lord Milner Censured_]
Meanwhile events in South Africa were rapidly approaching a critical
stage. At Mr. Chamberlain's request, a conference between Sir Alfred
Milner and President Krüger was held at Bloemfontein early in June
to adjust the conflicting claims of the Transvaal Boers and the
Uitlanders, whose position Sir Alfred Milner had compared to that of
"helots." _Punch_ summed up the conference in two cartoons. In the
first, headed "Moral Suasion," Milner is seen endeavouring to pacify
Krüger as a cow: "I will sit on the stile and continue to smile." In
the second, "The Smile that Failed," the High Commissioner remarks:--
I _have_ sat on this Stile
And continued to Smile,
But it's had no effect on the Cow.
[Illustration: THE SMILE THAT FAILED
SIR ALFR-D M-LN-R again sings:--
"There was a 'High Com.' who said, 'Now
I've conferred with this wily old cow!
I _have_ sat on this stile,
And continued to smile,
But it's had no effect on the Cow!'" (_Exit._)
]
[Illustration: "Yer know, them Boers 'as been storin' guns and
hambition for years!"]
A very different reading of the situation is given in the letter to
Sir Alfred Milner published a week later. Here the High Commissioner
is heavily censured not for the failure of the conference, but for the
"ridiculous" and "frothy" tone of his dispatch about "helots," and for
his rash, impetuous and overbearing temper. In July _Punch_ was still
inclined to make light of the whole business, apparently expecting
an amicable settlement, and in a burlesque "Story of a Crisis" in
"Nabothsland" reflected adversely if obliquely on the pretensions of
the Uitlanders. Yet early in September sympathy with the Uitlanders
underlies the verses condemning the inconsistency of Little Englanders,
who in theory espouse the cause of all oppressed nationalities but
their own. The damning blot on the Uitlanders' cause was that they were
English. If they had been Finns, for instance, the Little Englander
would have shed his last drop of ink in their defence. This was at
the lowest a good debating point, and at all points preferable to the
unfortunate picture ridiculing the unmilitary appearance of the Boers,
President Krüger being shown in the act of reviewing his veterans, a
number of fat, unwieldy farmers. The declaration of war came early
in October, and _Punch_ unhesitatingly declared his support of the
decision in the cartoon "Plain English," where John Bull says to the
Boers: "As you will fight, you shall have it. This time it is a fight
to a finish." So it was; but few, except Lord Wolseley, expected that
the finish would only be reached after a long, obstinate and costly
struggle. Lord Wolseley's warning in September, 1899, foreshadows the
more famous anticipation of the duration of the Great War made by Lord
Kitchener fifteen years later. Many other parallels and contrasts
are suggested in _Punch's_ pages as he reflects the varying moods of
England during the chequered progress of the campaign. The divisions of
opinion at home were more acute than in 1914. Moreover, we entered on
the Boer war in a spirit of confidence and complacency
[Sidenote: _The Boer War_]
which rendered the initial reverses more surprising and depressing.
Otherwise the alternations of despondency and elation; the criticisms
of mismanagement, laxity and indifference, want of intelligence and
imagination; and the charges against the enemy of disregarding the
rules of the game have a curiously familiar ring. _Punch_ reflected
popular opinion in resenting the "detachment" of Mr. Balfour in
describing our reverses as "inevitable," and in rebuking the optimism
of other Ministers; in his demand for the "facts"; in attributing to
President Krüger gratitude to the Opposition for their assistance;
in his cheering message to Baden-Powell for "keeping his end up" in
Mafeking. Yet he commented severely on the diamond speculators for
their "operations" during the war; he had a good word for Lord Morley
when he was attacked as a Little Englander; and a strong rebuke for the
agencies which announced tours to the South African battlefields as
early as April, 1900. Punch had shown John Bull as Mark Tapley--when
Kimberley had been relieved and Lord Roberts was advancing--but his
comments on the publication of the Spion Kop dispatches reveal grave
dissatisfaction with the conduct of the Natal campaign:--
SOME ONE HAD BLUNDERED
Sir Redvers devised an impossible plan
Which he trusted to Warren, an obstinate man;
Lord Roberts sent home some dispatches, and there
He freely expressed what he thought of the pair.
The War Office published these documents plain,
To the joy of their foes, and the grief of the sane;
And while they were reading them, all the world wondered,
And promptly concluded that everyone blundered.
Humorous relief was provided by the report that Krüger had encouraged
his burghers by circulating the news that London had been captured by
the Russians, a method foreshadowing the imaginative exploits of the
Germans in the late war. It was based, however, on an incontestable
fact--our unpopularity in both hemispheres. The Boer delegates had
been welcomed in America, though _Punch_ sought to discount the effect
of their propaganda by a cartoon in which Columbia reassures John Bull:
"Don't mind those noisy boys of mine. You know, my dear, it's _Election
Time_."
The Anglophobe feeling was much more vocal in France, and _Punch_ gives
a curious account of the Transvaal section of the Paris Exhibition in
October, where signatures were invited and freely appended to addresses
to the two Presidents, the bust of Krüger was crowned with palm
branches, poetic eulogies were circulated, and the walls covered with
"_Mort aux Anglais_," "Chamberlain _est un vache_," etc. Meanwhile,
Mafeking had been relieved, and _Punch_ had defended the "loud extremes
of passionate joy" which added the now well-nigh forgotten verb "to
Maffick" to our current vocabulary. Lord Roberts's uninterrupted
advance to Pretoria had moved _Punch_, with many others, to declare
very prematurely on June 6th that the war was practically over, though
it lasted nearly two years longer, and the slow progress of "rounding
up" the Boers actually prompted the suggestion from a leading paper
that Lord Kitchener should be recalled and Lord Roberts sent out again.
President Krüger's flitting is illustrated in a cartoon in which "Oom
Paul" is seen in a small boat, with two millions of treasure, quitting
the sinking ship _Transvaal_; while in a set of verses, written after
reading of his triumphal progress through France, _Punch_ prophesies
for him a green old age in Grosvenor Square. The C.I.V.'s returned
in the autumn and were welcomed by the City of London; and shortly
afterwards "a Mr. Williams offered respectful apologies to Satan for
mentioning him in the same breath with Lord Kitchener." _Punch_, even
in his most Chauvinistic mood, never indulged in such abuse of the Boer
generals, and at the end of 1900 paid a well-deserved compliment to the
elusive De Wet in his cartoon of "De Wet o' de Wisp."
[Sidenote: _China and Australia_]
Before dealing with the subsequent progress of the "guerrilla war,"
we may turn aside for a moment to other developments overseas. In an
epigram on "The Millennium" in August, 1900, _Punch_ writes:--
In some problematic day
Strife and wrath shall fade away,
Crews no longer blessing pouring
On the coxes who have cox'd,
When the Boers shall cease from boring
And the Boxers shall be boxed.
The revolt of the Boxers in China and the joint expedition of the
European Powers assisted by Japan to relieve the Legations in Peking
are treated in two cartoons. In the first, in which the Chinese Dragon
is seen in the background, Japan expresses her readiness to help the
European Powers. She is glad to join them, "but permit me to remark
that if some of you hadn't interfered when I had him down, it would
have saved all this trouble"--a legitimate comment on the intervention
of Germany and Russia after the Chino-Japanese war. In the second, "The
Closed Door," Europa is seen armed with an axe, preparing to break her
way in to the relief of the Legations. Apocryphal reports of what was
happening in China reached a high-water mark of mendacity this summer,
and the English Press did not escape the charge of credulity, to put
it mildly. Reports of the death of the Dowager Empress were so common
as to inspire _Punch_ with a poetic homage to the "lady of the charmed
life," and when she shifted her capital, he showed Krüger looking over
a wall at her exodus with the remark: "My idea!"
It was in 1900 also that the Australian Commonwealth Bill was
introduced by Mr. Chamberlain. _Punch_ in his first reference to the
measure, animated by a recognition of Australia's loyalty in the
Boer war, assumed that Clause 74, abolishing the appeal to the Privy
Council, would be passed. Australia is seen showing the new latchkey
she has had made, as she wanted a little more freedom, and Britannia
declares her readiness to trust her. This proved premature, and a
little later on _Punch_, in a letter to the Australian delegates, waxes
sarcastic over the "niggling, pedantic and pettifogging inquisition
which it was proposed to institute into the demand for Federation"--_à
propos_ of the Privy Council Appeals. As a matter of fact, the clause
was amended, because the States were not at one on the point, and all
seven Chief Justices favoured the maintenance of the right of Appeal.
Lord Roberts returned to England at the close of the year, and _Punch_
saluted his arrival in "The Home-coming of the Chief." His great
services are acknowledged, not least his self-sacrifice in the hour of
bitter personal loss:--
Ah! but while a nation's cries
Storm against our sullen skies
'Midst the madness and the mirth
Flung about your victor's way,
If behind the brave array
All the hidden heart were known,
Save for love of England's name
Gladly would you yield the prize,
Glory, triumph, wealth and fame,
Could you win one grace alone,
Could you have your boy again
Home from where he takes his rest
Lying under alien earth
By Colenso's dreadful plain,
With the Cross above his breast.
[Illustration: "REQUIESCAT!"]
That is truly and finely said, and yet how strangely the epithet
"dreadful" sounds to those who have found all the vocabulary of horror
beggared by the experiences of the Great War! The opening of the New
Year was clouded by the passing of Queen Victoria. In all the sixty
years of _Punch's_ existence, even in the moods when his comments on
Court and Crown had been frank to the verge of audacity, loyalty to the
person of the Sovereign had never failed. His adverse criticism was
seldom malicious, and was almost always animated by a desire that the
Sovereign should never fall below the standard of _noblesse oblige_.
The days of resentment against the Queen's prolonged seclusion had long
passed. She had ceased to be "the Royal Recluse," and was unsparing of
herself in the discharge of her duties up to within a few weeks of her
death. When she spoke in one of her messages of "her beloved people,"
there could be no question of her sincerity, or of the devotion with
which her love was returned.
As Mr. Balfour said significantly of her: "Even those who loved not
England loved her," and in later years those who came to scoff at her
memory remained to praise:--
THE QUEEN
Born May 24, 1819. Died January 22, 1901.
The tears we disallow to lesser ill
Here is no shame for English eyes to shed,
Because the noblest heart of all is still--
Because the Queen lies dead.
Grief asks for words, yet silent grief were well;
Vain is desire, as passionate prayer was vain;
Not all our love can bring, by any spell,
Breath to those lips again.
Ah! had but Death forgone his royal claim,
Demanding ransom, life for life the price,
How loyalty had leaped to kiss the flame
Of such a sacrifice!
God knows, in many a need this thing has been--
Light hearts for her have dared the desolate grave;
From other hurt their blood has saved the Queen,
From Death it could not save.
And of the dregs to drink from sorrow's cup
This is most bitter, that with life's release
She might not leave her children folded up
Between the wings of Peace.
Yet, for a solace in that darkest hour,
When even Kings have found themselves alone,
Over a people's love she kept her power
Firm as her fathers' throne.
[Sidenote: _Candid Friends and Hostile Critics_]
The "Khaki" election of the previous autumn, at which the Government
had appealed to the country to decide the issue of fighting the war to
a finish, had resulted in the return of the Unionists by a majority of
134, but did not abate the activities of the "Stop the War" party. They
were stimulated to further and more vehement protests by the policy of
the Concentration Camps, and the loss of life through epidemics caused
by the compulsory herding together of those who were interned. Between
the denunciations of British "brutalities" by the German Press and the
talk of "hecatombs of slaughtered babes" by British Liberals--between
"candid friends" and hostile critics--there was not much to choose.
_Punch_ invoked the shade of Bismarck to rebuke the excesses of the
German journalists; he ridiculed Miss Emily Hobhouse's descriptions of
Concentration Camp horrors by giving a list of the luxuries which were
not provided there--hairpins, curling-tongs, etc.--and in a cartoon at
the close of the year represented the "Stop the War" group as making
such a noise that Peace's voice could not be heard. Cleavage was shown
in the ranks of the Opposition, and _Punch_ did not fail to emphasize
the divergences between Mr. Asquith and the Imperialist Liberals on the
one side, and "C.-B." and Sir William Harcourt on the other. General
Baden-Powell arrived in England in July, and _Punch's_ greeting aptly
describes his mood and that of the man in the street:--
Time has flown; but not forgotten is the tale of Mafeking!
Who that lived that Day in London could forget its echoing ring?
How the Town broke into bunting, Piccadilly to Mile End!
How each man for joy saluted every other man as friend!
How we crowded to the city in an orgy of delight,
Tumbled out of bed for gladness, waving Union Jacks all night!
Even if we overdid it after deadening suspense,
Better this than anti-British Queen's Hall windbags' insolence!
Though we later coined a playful word, our soberer sense to show,
I would rather "maffick" daily than abet a treacherous foe!
In the controversies that arose over the treatment of various British
generals, I may note that _Punch_ supported the motion for an inquiry
into the circumstances under which General Colvile was deprived of his
command, which was negatived in the House by 262 votes to 248. Over
the still more thorny question of General Buller's conduct of the
Natal campaign he preserved an impartial attitude, while implying that
the general would not exploit his grievance for political purposes.
Early in the war _Punch_ paid a rather left-handed compliment to the
war correspondents; they are represented as welcoming war because it
brought them remunerative employment. In the autumn of 1901 we find him
pressing their claims for war medals, and observing that the Press had
been shut out but not shut up.
The war, he also notes on the authority of a daily paper, had produced
more poets than any similar crisis in English history. A more striking
parallel with recent war-products is to be found in _Punch's_ review
of the depression, discontent and decline of trade which it had begun
to cause before hostilities ceased. This is clearly shown in July,
1901, in the Preface to Vol. cxxi, where _Punch_ rebukes John Bull,
no longer in his Mark Tapley vein, for listening to pessimists, and
encouraging a seditious and pernicious Press. In the opening stages
of the war _Punch_ had been none too friendly to Lord Methuen, but he
was righteously indignant at the "Ghoul-like ecstasy" of the Irish
Members who cheered the news of the defeat and capture of that gallant
soldier in the spring of 1902. The end of the war came in June, and is
chronicled in _Punch's_ "Cease Fire" cartoon. The happiest incident
of the surrender was the speech made by Lord Kitchener to the Boer
delegates at Vereeniging when he said that "if he had been one of them,
he would have been proud to have done so well in the field as they had
done." _Punch_ did well to record it, for it reflected the national
respect felt for a stubborn foe. For confirmation we need only turn
to the laconic entry in the _National Register_ for August 16, 1902:
"The Boer generals, Botha, De Wet and Delarey ... proceeded to London,
and had an enthusiastic popular reception." Subsequent events have
justified the somewhat complacent remark attributed to John Bull in the
cartoon two months later, _à propos_ of the grant of £3,000,000 to the
Transvaal, and the Boers' "Appeal to the Civilized World": "Look here,
my friend, stick that up, if you like; but I think you'll find that _I_
talk less than the others and give more."
[Sidenote: _Lord Kitchener's Return_]
Lord Kitchener had returned in July, and _Punch's_ welcome ends on a
prophetic note:--
You're a worker from of old,
K. of K.
Pomps and pæans leave you cold,
K. of K.
You would like to land in mufti,
You would hurry down the dock
Not in trappings, plumed and tufty,
But in checks and billycock!
And you haven't, now It's over,
Come to stay;
Nor to lie at length in clover,
But to change your train for Dover,
K. of K.
For, although the work's appalling
Which should have you here at hand,
Yet you've heard the East a-calling
Out of India's coral strand;
And, as soon as time and place
Let our feelings find release,
And we've called you, to your face,
First in War and first in Peace;--
Thither where the Empire needs you,
K. of K.,
And your own "Ubique" leads you,
Lies your way!
Mr. Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presidency of the United States on
the assassination of Mr. McKinley, and _Punch_, after condoling with
Columbia, saluted the "Rough-Rider."
Our closer relations with Japan and their effect on Russia are
symbolized in the cartoon in which she remarks as a _tertia_ anything
but _gaudens_: "H'm--I don't like these confidences." In Europe the
subject that provoked _Punch's_ closest attention was the treatment
of the Poles by Germany. There is an amusing story in "Charivaria,"
probably apocryphal, but not beyond the possibilities of Prussian
pedantry:--
Fifty Prussian schoolgirls have been arrested at Gnesen on a charge of
high treason, and the police are said to have their eyes on several
Kindergartens, where it is reported that the children have been
playing "I'm the king of the Castle" and other games suggestive of
Majestätsbeleidigung.
But the whole essence of "Prussification" is summed up in the last
quatrain of a brilliant adaptation of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" to
the situation in Posen:--
You can take a Pole, as I understand,
And play on his nerves with a German Band;
But you can't convert his natural temper, or
Get him to jig for a German Emperor.
Lord Salisbury had resigned in the summer of 1902, and Mr. Balfour had
succeeded to the Premiership. It was not exactly a case of "Amurath
to Amurath," but with nephew succeeding to uncle, and the presence of
another nephew and a son-in-law in the Cabinet, there was some ground
for the once familiar gibes against the "Hotel Cecil." _Punch_ was
not unfriendly to the new Premier, and applauded his handling of the
negotiations initiated by Germany to secure a British subsidy to the
German-controlled Baghdad railway. In "The Trap that Failed," the
British Lion "doesn't like the look of it and resolves to go round the
other way"; and the verses (after Omar Khayyám) indicate the surprise
of "the Potter of Potsdam" at the unexpected firmness of Mr. Balfour.
The gradual improvement of our relations with other foreign Powers is
symbolized in "The Chain of Friendship," showing King Edward joining
in a dance with France, Italy and Portugal; while the strengthening
of the Anglo-French _Entente_ is illustrated in the cartoon in which
King Edward, presenting the British Lion, says to the French President:
"See, M. Loubet, he offers you his paw." An element of reserve,
however, is shown in a dialogue in French, mildly satirizing the new
Anglomania; and in the burlesque sketch foreshadowing the ludicrous
and disastrous influence on both countries of the _Entente_--e.g. the
re-introduction of the duel on the initiative of the _Daily Mail_; the
presentation of Waterloo Station to the French and, as a set-off, the
presentation of the Keys of Calais to the Lord Mayor of London by the
Paris Municipal Council. To turn from gay to grave, this was the year
of the assassination of the King and Queen of Serbia, recorded in the
cartoon of "Murder as the King Maker."
[Sidenote: _Ireland, Army Reform, and India_]
Home politics fill a larger space in 1903 in _Punch's_ pages than
for some years previously. Remedial legislation in Ireland inspires
the cartoon of Mr. Balfour as St. Patrick--a saint invaluable to the
harassed cartoonist--driving out the snakes of sedition. The basis
of Mr. Wyndham's Land Purchase Act is well shown in the cartoon
illustrating the financial relations of the two countries. Tenant and
landlord both present money-boxes labelled "Land Purchase" to John
Bull, asking him to "put a thrifle in them"; John Bull scratches his
head, but he pays all the same. The difficulties of Mr. Brodrick in
securing national support for Army Reform are set forth in the verses
on "The Unhappy Warrior" (after Wordsworth), and the cartoon "Ready,
aye unready," with John Bull asleep on sentry duty--_à propos_ of the
Report of the Royal Commission on the South African war. A little
later, John Bull's short memory is satirized in his protest against
the size of his new watch-dog. Forgetting that he had clamoured for
increase, he now declares that he cannot afford him.
At the opening of the year _Punch_ had lavishly chronicled the glories
of the Delhi Durbar. "The Pilgrims to the East" included three members
of his staff, who did justice to the occasion both with pen and pencil,
and Sambourne's fine cartoon, "_Vivat Imperator_," forms an instructive
pendant and palinode to _Punch's_ anti-imperialist misgivings of 1876,
when he regarded the assumption of the new title as a piece of shoddy
Disraelian Orientalism.
Lord Salisbury's death in 1903 removed a great figure, whose prestige
has grown with the knowledge available in later years. We have learned
to revise the old view of his political stature as compared with
that of Lord Beaconsfield, and to reject the often-quoted but quite
erroneous saying attributed to Bismarck that he was "a lath painted
to resemble iron." _Punch's_ memorial tribute admits that he "nothing
common did or mean":--
When Lord Salisbury, resigning the Premiership, practically retired
from public life, a gap was made in the House of Lords no living
man might fill. Only once has he returned to the scene of memorable
labour. He came with the rest of the cloaked Peers to pay homage to
King Edward the Seventh when first he seated himself on the throne
which he had long regarded from the point of view of the Cross
Benches. There was hope that the ex-Premier would, from time to time,
still give the House and the country the advantage of his sagacious
counsel, the pleasure of listening to his brilliant speech. But, like
the other tall man in another chair, "his heart was worn with work."
He was sick of the sometimes mean rivalry of political life, and felt
he had earned his leisure.
In a manner unique Lord Salisbury had the faculty of standing apart
from his fellow men, regarding them and appraising them as if he
himself did not belong to the _genus_. It was as if a man from Mars
had visited our planet, studying its pygmy population with amused,
on the whole scornful interest. With one exception he was the only
statesman who never bent the knee to the Baal known in political
chatter as The Man in the Street. The exception is, of course, the
Duke of Devonshire, who had further kinship with the Marquis in
respect of absolute freedom from desire to get anything for himself
out of the game of politics. Intellectually and morally--this
latter more precious because more rare--Lord Salisbury uplifted and
maintained at high level the standard of English public life. He was
a man whom foreigners, equally with his own countrymen, unreservedly
trusted, because of a personal quality worth the whole armoury of
diplomacy.
With his withdrawal from the stage, the House of Lords as a debating
assembly lost its chief attraction. It was worth sitting through a
dreary couple of hours for the chance reward of hearing him speak.
Whilst others discoursed he sat impassive, taking no note, making no
sign of hearing, or caring about, what the noble lord on his legs said
or left unspoken. Only a curious rapid movement of the crossed leg
betokened cogitation, betrayed closest attention, and the framing of
some sentences that would presently play about the adversary's head
like forked lightning.
[Sidenote: _The Fiscal Fray_]
An event of greater immediate interest which coincided with the passing
of Lord Salisbury was the resignation of Mr. Chamberlain. On his return
from a strenuous and exhausting tour in South Africa, he had thrown
himself with immense energy into the Tariff Reform campaign, and
withdrew from the Cabinet in order to devote his entire energies to the
prosecution of the cause. _Punch's_ pages throughout the second half
of 1903 furnish a lively chronicle of the progress of Mr. Chamberlain's
crusade and the wonderful egg-dance of Mr. Balfour. Early in September
the situation is portrayed in "The Parting of the Ways." Mr. Balfour,
"long troubled by philosophic doubt," is shown on the road with a
knapsack labelled "Treasury Returns" and "Board of Trade Returns,"
looking at a sign-post, one arm pointing to Chatsworth, the other to
Highbury, and saying: "Well, now, I suppose I must really make up my
mind."
A week later we have the Fiscal Hamlet in "The Unready Reckoner."
Prince Arthur remarks: "O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I
have not the art to reckon," while on the wall hangs a portrait of Mr.
Chamberlain as Ophelia. In November, under the heading "An Eye for
Effect," _Punch_ exhibits "Foreign Competition" as a Guy on a barrow,
with Mr. Chamberlain in charge and conversing with Mr. Balfour:--
ARTHUR: "Ain't you made 'im too 'orrible?"
JOE: "No fear! You _can't_ make 'em too 'orrible!"
Simultaneously, _Punch_ published a burlesque on the _Daily Mail's_
canvass, with expressions of opinion from Henry James, Rudyard Kipling
and Mr. A. B. Walkley. The _Daily Express_, not to be outdone, offered
a prize of £25 to the owner of the first parrot taught to speak
distinctly the phrase: "Your food will cost you more." The "folly of
the fray" was not overlooked, but _Punch_ did not misread its essential
significance in his cartoon of Mr. Chamberlain in the guise of the
political Ancient Mariner who had slain the albatross of Conservative
unity.
Foreign politics once more dominated the scene in 1904, when the
legacy of friction, bequeathed by Russia's intervention at the close
of the Chino-Japanese war and her Manchurian policy after the "Boxer"
outbreak, bore its inevitable fruit in the Russo-Japanese war. The
sympathy of England with Japan is reflected in the pages of _Punch_.
He rebuked the hissing of Russian performers at a performance in the
provinces; but satirized the indignation generally expressed in Russia
that Japan should have begun hostilities without a formal declaration,
or, as _Punch_ put it, without consulting Russia as to whether the date
was convenient to her. The fervent patriotism of the Japanese army is
cordially applauded: John Bull is shown in a mood of envy, thinking he
must try to introduce it at home. The unfortunate Dogger Bank incident,
when Admiral Rozhdestvensky's fleet, on their way out to the Far East,
fired on a fleet of British trawlers, aroused great indignation, mixed
with bitter satire of Russian nerves and thrasonical satisfaction.
_Punch_ published a scarifying parody of Campbell's "Battle of the
Baltic" on this "famous victory" over a "hostile trawling fleet"
engaged in "gutting plaice." Later on in "Admirals All" there is an
equally sarcastic comment on the Report of the North Sea Court of
Inquiry, at which the Russians were exculpated by an Austrian Admiral.
Nor was _Punch's_ indignation expressed against Russia alone. The
acceptance of Russian orders by British coal exporters is chastised in
a cartoon with the legend as under:--
Old King Coal
Was a sordid old soul,
And a sordid old soul was he:
He sold to the Russ,
And he didn't care a cuss,
And the Baltic fleet crossed the sea.
On the fall of Port Arthur, however, _Punch_ did not forget to
acknowledge the heroism of the defence: here, at least, "the honour
of the Russian eagle was untarnished." The war ended in May, 1905,
but before its close Russian internal unrest had become menacing and
hampered the prosecution of hostilities. _Punch_ read the signs of the
times truly in his cartoon of Death as the Czar of all the Russias,
with a figure holding a "Petition" lying slain at his feet; and again
in his rather cruel verses to "The Little Father":--
THE LITTLE FATHER
Nichol, Nichol, little Czar,
How I wonder where you are!
You who thought it best to fly,
Being so afraid to die.
Now the sullen crowds are gone,
Now there's nought to fire upon;
Sweet your sleigh bells ring afar,
Tinkle, tinkle, little Czar.
Little Czar, with soul so small,
How are you a Czar at all?
Yours had been a happier lot
In some peasant's humble cot.
Yet to you was given a day
With a noble part to play,
As an Emperor and a Man;
When it came--"then Nicky ran."
Little Czar, beware the hour
When the people strikes at Power;
Soul and body held in thrall,
They are human after all.
Thrones that reek of blood and tears
Fall before the avenging years.
While you watch your sinking star,
Tremble, tremble, little Czar!
[Illustration: THE CZAR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS]
The contrasted outlook in Russia and Japan is shown in "Peace and
After"--gloom and storm in the one country, general rejoicing in
the other. The signing of the Peace in October brought mutiny and
insurrection in Russia, repressed for the moment by grape-shot and
concessions. _Punch_ distrusted the former method, and warned the Tsar
through the mouth of Louis XVI: "Side with the people, Sire, while
there is yet time. _I_ was too late." The instalment of constitutional
government granted was shorn of its grace by the antecedent display
of ruthlessness. _Punch_ typified this situation in his cartoon of
the Tsar armed with a sword and leaning on a cannon, with corpses
strewn around, and saying: "Now I think the way is clear for universal
suffrage." But _Punch_ was premature in saluting the first Duma--opened
by the Tsar in person in May, 1906--as the Infant Hercules strangling
the twin snakes of Bureaucracy and Despotism. It was the Duma which was
strangled by these forces, of which the first was the more potent and
malign.
[Sidenote: _Belgium and Germany_]
Another foreign monarch who came in for severe criticism in these
years was King Leopold II of the Belgians. Quite recently he had been
treated by _Punch_ with a benevolence that bordered on fulsomeness. But
1904 was the year of the "Congo Atrocities," and _Punch_, in a cartoon
modelled on the ancient Egyptian lines, compared him with the Pharaoh
Rameses II whose scribes counted over the hands cut from his vanquished
enemies. This was suggested by the stories of the similar treatment of
the natives in the rubber plantations vouched for by the British Consul
at Boma. The value of this evidence has since been impaired by the fact
that the Consul in question was none other than Roger Casement. From
Belgium to Germany the transition is easy. In the last two years of
the Unionist administration, German aggressiveness is a constant theme
of comment, mainly inspired by misgiving, occasionally enlivened by
burlesque belittlement of scaremongers. To the latter category belongs
the forecast, at the close of 1904, of the invasion of London, seized
during a week-end exodus of its inhabitants. Nor should we fail to
note the series of appreciative articles on life in Berlin in 1905, in
which "Tom the Tourist" finds the German capital "one of the liveliest,
pleasantest and handsomest of cities," and descants on its good beer,
pleasant company, genial hospitality, and the absence of any sign of
hatred of the British. The writer even goes so far as to compare the
Sieges-Allée favourably with some of the statuary of London. But a
different note is struck in the lines on the vicarious patriotism of
those who objected to conscription; in the references to the inadequacy
of our coast defences; in the satisfaction expressed in the appointment
of Sir John Fisher as First Sea Lord, and the improvement in naval
gunnery; and in the satire directed against the new German Chancellor,
Count von Bülow, for his cynical "_blague_." As "_Der Taubadler_," he
reproves President Roosevelt for Jingoism, and declares:--
Our passion for ruling the brine
Is based on a single and pure design--
To serve as a sort of Marine Police,
Patrons of Universal Peace.
Lord Roberts's warning speech at the London Chamber of Commerce in the
late summer of 1902 had prompted the cartoon "The Call to Arms." John
Bull, aroused from slumber and only half-awake, asks "What's wrong?"
Lord Roberts, the warning warder, replies: "You are absolutely unfitted
and unprepared for war!" whereon John Bull rejoins drowsily: "Am I?
You _do_ surprise me," and goes to bed again. Growing distrust of the
Kaiser is shown in the cartoon in which he figures as "The Sower of
Tares" after Millais's picture, while _Punch_ simultaneously manifests
his satisfaction at the strengthening of the Anglo-French _Entente_.
The British working man, if _Punch_ is to be believed, disliked all
foreigners, but his pet aversion was "them blooming Germans." There
was, at any rate, a legitimate grievance in the fact that fifty-nine
foreign pilots were employed on our coasts, whereas abroad our ships
were compelled to take native pilots; and the Nelson Centenary on
October 21, 1905, impelled _Punch_, in an address to the hero of
Trafalgar, to deplore the decay of national patriotism in a vein of
pessimism happily falsified ten years later:--
Much you would have to marvel at
Could you return this autumn-tide;
You'd find the Fleet--thank God for that--
Staunch and alert as when you died;
But, elsewhere, few to play your part,
Ready at need and ripe for action;
The rest--in idle ease of heart
Smiling an unctuous satisfaction.
I doubt if you could well endure
These new ideals (so changed we are),
Undreamed, Horatio, in your
Philosophy of Trafalgar;
And, should you still "expect" to see
The standard reached which you erected,
Nothing just now would seem to be
So certain as the unexpected.
[Illustration: THE CALL TO ARMS!
JOHN BULL (aroused from slumber and only half awake): "What's
wrong?"
LORD ROBERTS (the warning Warder): "You are absolutely
unfitted and unprepared for war!"
JOHN BULL (drowsily): "Am I? You _do_ surprise me!" (_Goes to
bed again._)
(Vide speech by Lord Roberts at meeting of London Chamber of Commerce,
Mansion House.)]
The "decline and fall" of the Unionist administration are symbolized
and explained in two cartoons in the late summer of 1905. In one Mr.
Balfour is seen, a lonely swimmer, wallowing in the sea of Public
Opinion. A voice from the Tug (Tory Organization) hails him, urging him
to keep afloat and he'll "drift in to the shore" (Session 1906). He
replies that he "can't do much against a tide like this." The sources
of weakness are even better diagnosed in the cartoon of August 30,
"Shelved," showing the group of statesmen who had resigned--the Duke of
Devonshire, Mr. Ritchie, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Lord George Hamilton
and Mr. George Wyndham.
The rout of the Government at the General Election of 1906 was a
veritable _débâcle_. Liberal candidates were returned who never got
in before or after: there is a story of one so overwhelmed by his
wholly unexpected success that he fainted on the declaration of the
poll. Ministers went down like ninepins, and on the meeting of the new
Parliament _Punch_ descants on the disappearance of the "old familiar
faces"--Mr. Arthur Balfour and his brother Gerald, Alfred Lyttelton and
St. John Brodrick, Bonar Law, Sir John Gorst, Sir Albert Rollit, Sir W.
Hart Dyke, Gibson Bowles, and, "saddest fate of all and most lamented,"
Mr. Henry Chaplin. The emergence of a new, formidable, but uncertain
factor was at once recognized in the cartoon in which John Bull looks
over the wall at a bull labelled Labour Vote. The Trade Disputes Bill,
the first and most notable concession to the demands of Trade Unionism,
is discussed in the next section.
[Illustration: AN UNDER-RATED MONSTER
BRITANNIA: "That's a nasty-looking object, Mr. Boatman!"
LORD TW-DM-TH: "Bless your 'eart, mum, 'e won't 'urt you. I've
been here, man an' boy, for the last six months, an' we don't take no
account o' them things!"]
_Punch_ was more preoccupied with Lord Haldane's new army scheme,
and when the War Minister, in introducing it, declared that the
country would not be "dragooned into conscription," interpreted his
statement "in other and less conventional terms" as indicating a
conviction that "it is the inalienable right of the free-born British
citizen to decline to lift a finger in his country's defence." Lord
Haldane's proposals for retrenchment are symbolized in his efforts to
make big toy soldiers fit his box, instead of making the box fit the
soldiers. Wasters and loafers who had cheered "Bobs" on his return
from South Africa are shown expressing indignation at his wanting to
enforce universal military service. _Punch's_ reluctant admission
of our national lethargy finds vent in a dialogue emphasizing the
predominance of the _Panem et Circenses_ spirit--devotion to the Big
Loaf and spectacular games--coupled with a loss of our supremacy in
games. The pageant mania became acute in 1907, when _Punch_ satirically
asks, "Can you cite any other country where it is impossible to walk
out of doors without colliding with an historical pageant?"
Lord Haldane's visit to Germany in 1906 is burlesqued in a diary
professing to reveal his paramount interest in German philosophy and
literature; and a picture, in which he appears in a _Pickelhaube_,
expresses the misgivings of two British soldiers who had overheard
him "talking to himself in German--something horrible." This attitude
of critical distrust is maintained throughout the next four years. In
March, 1908, the new gun designed for the Territorial Force prompts a
dialogue between the War Minister and Field-Marshal _Punch_:--
MR. HALDANE: "In the event of invasion, I shall depend
upon my brave Territorial force to manipulate this magnificent and
complicated weapon."
F.-M. _Punch_: "Going to give them any training?"
MR. H.: "Oh, perhaps a fortnight or so a year."
F.-M. _Punch_: "Ah! Then they'll need to be pretty brave, won't they?"
Further satire is expended in August of the same year on "A Skeleton
Army; or, The Charge of the Very Light Brigade":--
HALDANE (at Cavalry Manoeuvres): "You see those three men?
Well, they're pretending to be one hundred. Isn't that imaginative?"
MR. _Punch_: "Realistic, you mean. That's about what it will
come to with us in real warfare."
[Illustration: HISTORY DEFEATS ITSELF
SHADE OF PAUL KRÜGER: "What! Botha _Premier_? Well, these
English _do_ 'stagger humanity'!"]
_Punch_ was not happy about our Navy either, and in 1906 he had rallied
Lord Tweedmouth, then at the Admiralty, for reassuring Britannia
against the German menace. It was no use to say, "We don't take no
account of them things"; the monster was there, and could not be
belittled. By the end of the year, however, _Punch's_ complacency
was restored by the advance in our naval gunnery, and Britannia is
seen proudly showing the impressive tabulated results of our big gun
practice. The Germans are the only modern people who have a single word
to express delight in the misfortunes of others--_Schadenfreude_. It
is not a noble sentiment, but a suspicion of it mingles with _Punch's_
comments on Germany's internal troubles. In 1878 he had shown Bismarck
squeezing down the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box, and nearly thirty years
later repeats the formula at the expense of Count von Bülow; but the
Socialist Jack-in-the-Box was now a much more formidable figure: it was
"a bigger task for a smaller man."
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Triple Alliance fell in 1907, and
_Punch_ indicated that Italy's allegiance was already wearing thin.
In performing the trio "We are a happy Family," Austria's "We are" is
marked _piano_, and that of Italy _dubioso_.
In the domain of high politics, Imperial and International, 1907 was
marked by two notable events. The grant of autonomy to the Transvaal
undoubtedly contained an element of risk, but the sequel showed
that magnanimity was the best policy. General Botha's Premiership
proved a symbol of reconciliation destined in time to bear "rare
and refreshing fruit," and _Punch_ was fairly entitled to invoke
the reluctant testimony of Krüger's shade: "What! Botha _Premier_?
Well, these English _do_ 'stagger humanity'!" Secondly, there was
the Hague Conference, over which _Punch_ maintained his attitude of
scepticism, on the ground that each Power was unwilling to lead the
way in disarmament. In his cartoon of the various nations at the door
of the Conference everybody says, "After you, Sir," to everybody else.
The Government's extensive programme of legislation for the following
session is shown in the picture of "C.-B." at the piano accompanying
the Infant Prodigy, 1908. The programme includes the "Twilight of the
Lords," "_Etudes Pacifiques_"; "_Danse anti-Bacchanale_" and "Irish
Rhapsody" with Campobello, McKenna, Asquith and Birrell as soloists.
The campaign against the Lords, opened at Edinburgh by "C.-B." in
October, 1907, suggested the cartoon of the "Fiery Cross" with the
Premier as a kilted warrior shouting, "Doon wi' the Lords!" while
the accompanying verses, in the ballad manner of Scott, describe
the passing on of the fiery cross by Lord Crewe, John Morley, Mr.
Sinclair (now Lord Pentland), Lord Tweedmouth, Mr. Runciman, and "Lloyd
McGeorge."
[Sidenote: _Naval Misgivings_]
The mention of Lord Tweedmouth reminds one that the question of our
naval supremacy had entered on a new phase. As _Punch_ put it in his
"Charivaria" in November, 1907, "There seems to be a difference of
opinion between the Prince of Wales and Sir John Fisher. Some little
time ago His Royal Highness, speaking at the Guildhall, cried: 'Wake
up, England!' Sir John, speaking in the same place, has now issued the
advice: 'Sleep quietly in your beds.'"
In the spring of 1908 occurred the awkward incident of the Kaiser's
letter to Lord Tweedmouth on Naval Retrenchment. _Punch_, in his
"Essence of Parliament," benevolently minimizes the First Lord's
indiscretion, which, along with other causes, led to his withdrawal
from the Admiralty; at the same time there appeared some highly
ironical reflections on the attitude of the advocates of the
Two-Power-Standard. In an ingenious adaptation of Tennyson's ballad of
"The Revenge," Sir Thomas Howard refuses to fight because he is one
ship short of the Two-Power-Standard.
In early Victorian days the Duke of Wellington was commonly alluded to
as "the Duke" _par excellence_. In the opening years of the present
century, in political circles at any rate, when people spoke of "the
Duke" they always meant the Duke of Devonshire, and for reasons which
are tersely and correctly given in _Punch's_ brief memorial verses when
he died in March, 1908:--
If to have held his way with steadfast will,
Unspoiled of Fortune, deaf to praise or blame,
Asking no favour but to follow still
The patriot's single aim:--
If, in contempt of other pride of race,
By honesty that chose the nobler part,
Careless of fame's reward, to win a place
Near to the common heart:--
If these be virtues large, heroic, rare,
Then is it well with him, the dead, to-day,
Who leaves a public record clean and fair,
That Time shall not gainsay.
The tribute is one which, we think, would have appealed to the dead
statesman, a man of few words, but who in the words of another Duke,
the Duke of Argyll, was "firm as the rock, and clear as the crystal
that adorns the rock."
A few weeks later Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, broken in health,
resigned the Premiership, dying so soon afterwards that he virtually
died in harness. _Punch_ did not overstate things in describing his
death as "a common grief" to Liberals and Unionists, for he had
outlived the obloquy of party bitterness and revealed as Premier
qualities which his successor, Mr. Asquith, fittingly described when
he spoke of him as "our revered and trusted chief." By a strange and
happy irony of fate, the statesman who had opposed the Boer war was
responsible for the policy of reconciliation which might have been much
harder if that war had not been waged.
Germany loomed large on the political horizon in 1908. This was the
year of Mr. Lloyd George's visit to inquire into the working of the
scheme of national insurance, a visit which _Punch_ treated with
undisguised irony as a belated afterthought. It was also the year of
the Kaiser's famous interview, published in the _Daily Telegraph_, in
which he claimed credit for magnanimity to England during the Boer war,
with the result of annoying his Chancellor and having to consent to a
revision of his conception of the Imperial prerogative. _Punch's_ open
letter to "The Great Misunderstood" exhibits considerable scepticism of
his friendliness, and a set of verses, in the same spirit, are inspired
by the activities of the German Women's Navy League. An English M.P.
had been exhibiting a toy model of a German gunboat used by this
organization as a collecting box, and it was alleged that these toys
were handed about in German schools with the request: "Give us your
pence, so that we can thrash the English."
[Sidenote: _The Kaiser's Soliloquy_]
The Kaiser's fiftieth birthday is commemorated in a "Soliloquy in
Berlin," in which the Emperor boasts of having swept aside Bismarck
and repressed the "too clamorous people" by police, prison or exile,
and defends his impulsive loquacity against his critics. The King must
know best, and "while all the discontented loose their tongues and rave
against him, shall the King be still?" Moreover, he claims to have kept
the world from war:--
And I have kept the peace. Was that well done?
I know not, but I know I kept the peace,
I, whose blood boiled to hear the clash of swords,
At whose command a million men would spring
Obedient to the conflict; I, whose soul
was made for glorious battle, who could lead
Ten thousand thundering horsemen to the charge,
Have kept the peace, while others urged to war.
[Illustration: "MUMMY, WHAT'S THAT MAN FOR?"]
Simultaneously _Punch_ illustrates the growing patriotic fervour at
home. Golfers are becoming shy of being detected on their way to or
from the links by men in uniform. And _Punch_ praises _An Englishman's
Home_ as a "wonderful play," in which the case for national service
is presented "with rare tact, and void of offence even to the most
violent anti-militarist." Indeed, he goes so far as to admit that
the author's advocacy is impaired by his making the vulgar cheerful
young "slacker" delightfully human, while the good young patriot is
too stagey and talkative. German aggressiveness is illustrated in
the cartoon showing the German sailor adopting our "Jingo" song, the
copyright having expired. Editorially, though obliquely, _Punch_
deplores the subservience of vital questions of foreign policy to party
questions, and gives special praise to Sir Edward Grey. "Prenderby,"
who impersonates a detached view, pleads for a Coalition Cabinet--a
Ministry of all the patriots. In the spring of 1909 Mr. Asquith
figures as the Night Watchman who cries "All's well," but John Bull
from his window replies: "So you say. All the same, I shall sit up
for a bit." This was the time of the cry for more _Dreadnoughts_: "We
want Eight and we won't wait." The vote of censure on the Government
for their inadequate naval preparations was rejected by 353 votes to
135, and _Punch_ satirized the Labour Party's idea of battleships in
a pictorial representation of H.M.S. _Inoffensive_, _Innocuous_, etc.
It is curious to find in another of _Punch's_ editorial dialogues one
of the speakers constantly harping on what might happen in 1914 when
_Dreadnoughts_ would be obsolete; while the happy-go-lucky attitude of
the average subaltern towards a possible war is expressed in the wish
attributed to one of them: "Let's hope it will come between the polo
and the huntin'." Lord Roberts's National Service Bill was thrown out
in the Lords in July by a narrow majority. _Punch's_ artist is most
frankly honorific to Lord Roberts; but the summary of the debate given
by his Parliamentary representative is not even non-committal, for it
contrives to disparage Lord Milner while emphasizing the opposition of
the Duke of Northumberland and the caution of Lord Lansdowne.
[Sidenote: _Mr. Birrell as Chief Secretary_]
At the close of the year the impenitence of the Belgian administrators
of the Congo is held up to execration in the cartoon of the
slave-driver outside the European Hall of Deliberation, armed with a
whip, and saying, "I'm all right. They're still talking"; while a
naked slave lies helpless and prostrate in the foreground.
After a brief and ineffectual tenure of office at the Board of
Education, Mr. Birrell had, whether out of heroic self-sacrifice
or ignorance, accepted the most thankless and arduous of all
portfolios--that of the Irish Chief Secretaryship. For the sequel, one
has to turn to the Report of the Hardinge Committee of Inquiry into the
Dublin revolution of Easter, 1916--one of the most lacerating public
documents ever devoted to the dissection of Ministerial incompetence.
But in 1909 there was, no doubt, much that appealed to _Punch_ in the
notion of setting a professional humorist to govern a quick-witted
people. There never was a greater mistake. Much was and is forgiven to
a Minister who amuses the House, but the legacy of hatred, faithfully
cherished by those who forgot nothing but benefits received, was not
to be cancelled by epigrams which provoked the facile laughter of St.
Stephen's. There was, however, a probably quite unintended though extra
appropriateness in the title of the verses to him as "The Right Man in
the Wrong Place," for the chief ground of complaint against the Chief
Secretary was that he was conspicuous by his absence from Ireland at
all critical moments, and eclipsed the "Absentee landlords" at their
own game. In 1909 _Punch_ contented himself with showing Mr. Birrell
as a Lecturer on Old Age Pensions as a means of allaying discontent,
and reducing the method to absurdity. The boon was naturally popular,
since, as _Punch_ noted on good authority, it had been claimed and
received by more than 50,000 people not qualified under the Act.
[Illustration: THE CONSTITUTION IN THE MELTING POT
THE THREE WITCHES: "Double, double, toil and trouble!"
_Macbeth_, act IV, scene 1.
]
[Sidenote: _Wait and See_]
In 1910 two general elections, fought on questions of internal policy,
and the conflict over the Parliament Bill diverted attention from
foreign politics. Lord Rosebery's scheme for the reform of the Upper
Chamber is treated in light-hearted fashion in the cartoon of the
Selection Committee of the Peers' Royal Academy. Lord Curzon and Lord
Lansdowne criticize Lord Rosebery's "problem picture": Lord Halsbury
bluntly ejaculates, "Take it away." _Punch_, however, recognized the
serious intentions of the Government in "The Constitution in the
Melting Pot," where Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd
George are the three witches bending over the cauldron. The Unionists
had gained some ground in the January elections, but not nearly enough;
in December, when party feeling ran much higher, they failed to improve
their position, in spite of the offer of a Referendum to determine the
question of Tariff Reform, and of their insistent warnings as to the
danger of single-chamber Government. _Punch_, with some reserves, was
decidedly opposed to the Government programme, and a hostile critic
alike of the platform exuberance of Mr. Lloyd George and the "wait and
see" policy of Mr. Asquith:--
Schemes are shattered, plots are changed,
Plans arranged and re-arranged!
Words are eaten; every day
Broken pledges thrown away;
Here the riddle--where the key?
Wait and see!
Does his wandering course reveal
Only love of Britain's weal?
Does he toil through heavy sand
Seeking how to keep his land
Clean and prosperous and free?
Wait and see!
Is it that he turns his eyes
To a goal that needs disguise?
Just a paltry party score,
Checked by some about him, more--
More particular than he?
Wait and see!
Is he one whose wavering mind
Lightly veers to every wind,
Hither pitched and thither tossed,
While the country pays the cost
Of his flaccid vertebræ?
Wait and see!
Be it not that he has sold
All the faith that men should hold
Sacred; that he walks his ways,
Flogged by those whom he obeys,
At whose word he bows the knee--
Wait and see!
Wait and see, and wait again:
But the country waits in vain.
Waits for order--finding none;
Sees but duty left undone.
* * *
What will Britain's verdict be?
Wait and see!
[Illustration: THE NEW JOHN BULL
After the proposed "Federalization" of the British Isles.]
[Illustration: THE CHANCE OF A LIFETIME
OUR MR. ASQUITH: "Five hundred coronets, dirt cheap! This line
of goods ought to make business a bit brisker, what?"
OUR MR. LLOYD GEORGE: "Not half; bound to go like hot cakes."]
[Illustration: "I SPY!"
_Both_ (together): "Peep-bo! I see you!"]
The proposed "federalization" of the British Isles is burlesqued
in the figure of John Bull, looking very much ashamed of himself,
arrayed in top-boots, with a kilt, a shamrock-sprigged waistcoat, a
Welsh steeple-crowned hat, and a shillelagh. The "People's Budget" is
disparaged in a picture showing the general apathy of those whom it was
intended to benefit. And as for the threatened creation of 500 Liberal
Peers to outvote the recalcitrant "backwoodsmen," _Punch_ satirized the
plan as a mere piece of window-dressing. In "The Chance of a Lifetime"
Mr. Asquith is seen arraying his shop-front with 500 coronets "dirt
cheap," Mr. Lloyd George as his assistant handing up the hat-boxes with
the comment, "Bound to go like hot cakes."
[Sidenote: _Death of King Edward_]
Perhaps the shrewdest comment on international politics made by _Punch_
in this year is to be found in his "Charivaria" column for November 9:--
Sir Edward Grey declared at Darlington that he saw no need for war.
Unfortunately, however, this is a great age for luxuries.
Here _Punch_ added a gloss to a wise truism. A remark in the Isle of
Man _Weekly Times_ at the beginning of the year touched the nadir of
sordid parochialism. Discussing the "inevitableness" of a war with
Germany, the writer observed: "It would mean the ruination of the
Island. It would kill all chances of a successful season, upon which
the Island depends." _Punch_ "lifted" the quotation, but here the text
beggared any comment.
By the assassination of the King and Crown Prince of Portugal in the
autumn, monarchy was ended in the country of our "Oldest Ally." _Punch_
denounced murder whether as the maker or unmaker of kings; and on
this occasion added to his condolences with the survivors a caustic
reference to France, who is shown briefly congratulating Portugal on
becoming a Republic; but she is "too busy to talk, having just escaped
another revolution at home"--an allusion to the railway strike and its
suppression by the drastic measures of M. Briand's Ministry. The death
of King Edward in May, at the height of his popularity and prestige,
was happily unattended by violence or upheaval, and left the position
of the Crown unshaken. _Punch_ was not one of those who regarded
King Edward as the initiator of our foreign policy, but gratefully
acknowledged his services in smoothing the path of his Ministers:--
At midnight came the Majesty of Death--
Kings of the earth abide this King's decree--
Sudden, and kindlier so, to seal the breath
And set the spirit free.
And now the Peace he held most near his heart,
That Peace to which his country's steps he led--
So well for us he played his royal part--
Broods o'er him lying dead.
[Illustration: TOWARDS THE RAPPROCHEMENT
CROWN PRINCE OF GERMANY (in India, writing home): "Dear Papa,
I am doing myself proud. These English aren't half bad fellows when you
get to know them."]
[Sidenote: _The German Menace_]
Thus passes Britain's crown from King to King,
Yet leaves secure a nation's deathless love,
Dearer than Empire, yea, a precious thing
All earthly crowns above.
In the winter of 1910 the German Crown Prince visited India, and was
welcomed and fêted wherever he went. _Punch_ regarded the tour as
making for _rapprochement_ and represented the Prince as an amiable
young sportsman writing home to "dear Papa" to say that he was "doing
himself proud and finding the English not half such bad fellows when
you get to know them." A more critical view of Germany's intentions is
revealed in the cartoon "The Blind Side," in which a German officer
applauds a Dutchman for the resolve to fortify his sea-front against
England as a true economy. It might be costly, but "see what you save
on the Eastern Frontier where there's nobody but us." A similar element
of misgiving is betrayed in "the New Haroun Al Raschid"--a dream of
Baghdad, "Made in Germany"--with the Kaiser in Oriental costume seated
on the engine of a "non-stop" express to the Persian Gulf.
[Illustration: A LITTLE-NAVY EXHIBIT
Design for a figure of Britannia, as certain people would like to see
her. (See reports of debate on the proposal to reduce expenditure on
the Navy.)]
[Sidenote: _The War in Tripoli_]
In the spring of 1911 the proposed reduction of expenditure on the Navy
inspired _Punch's_ "Little-Navy Exhibit"--a design for a figure of
Britannia, "as certain people would like to see her, "with a pointless
trident, diminutive shield and helmet, in spectacles and elastic-sided
boots, leading a starveling lion with its tail between its legs.
Simultaneously Germany's idea of the _Pax Germanica_ is satirized in
a picture of the Teuton Dovecote, with cannons pointing from each
door, surmounted by the German Eagle warning the Arbitration bird: "No
foreign doves required; we hatch our own, thank you." Our relations
with the U.S.A. are symbolized in "Dis-armageddon," President Taft
and Sir Edward Grey shaking hands over a grave with the notice, "All
hatchets may be buried here." Hostility to the "Declaration of London"
had grown throughout the year. It had been described as "a sword for
the Unionist Party"; picture posters represented the destruction under
it of neutral ships carrying food to Great Britain, and _Punch_,
without going the lengths of the _Morning Post_, the Imperial Maritime
League, or Mr. T. Gibson Bowles, was far from enthusiastic over its
ratification. "I'm sure," his Britannia remarks, looking at herself in
the glass, "my costumiers want me to look my best. But I have a sort
of feeling that this thing may rather hamper my sea-legs." Germany's
complaints against the policy of "isolating" or "surrounding" her
were now frequently heard, and are unsympathetically treated in the
portrait of the German officer in full uniform, with his knuckles to
his eyes, dolorously protesting, "Nobody loves me--and they all want
to trample on me!" Nor was _Punch_ inclined to look more favourably
on Italy's policy of aggrandisement in North Africa. The inglorious
war with Turkey in Cyrenaica brought no credit to the combatants or
to the Concert of Europe. _Punch_ summed up the situation by showing
Dame Europa (of the Hague Academy for Young Gentlemen) looking sourly
with folded arms at two boys "scrapping" in a corner, and observing,
"I thoroughly disapprove of this, and as soon as ever it's over I
shall interfere to put a stop to it." The conduct of the war led to
ugly charges against the Italians, and in "The Euphemisms of Massacre"
Turkey, surveying a scene of carnage at Tripoli, sarcastically remarks:
"When _I_ was charged with this kind of thing in Bulgaria, nobody
excused _me_ on the ground of 'military exigencies'!"
The Anglo-Russian agreement in regard to Persia was defended by Sir
Edward Grey in November, 1911, as having ended friction between the
two Powers. _Punch_ thought otherwise, and in December he showed the
Bear cheerfully sitting on the tail of the Persian Cat while the
British Lion remarks: "If we hadn't such a thorough understanding
I might almost be tempted to ask what you're doing there with our
little play-fellow." Yet Sir Edward Grey's explanations satisfied the
Unionists better than the advanced Liberals and the Labour Party.
Already the Government were being attacked for seeing events through
French spectacles, and in a memorable cartoon _Punch_ recorded
the emergence of the demand for "The New Diplomacy." An "Advanced
Democrat," having made his way into a room with "Private. Members Only"
on the door, remarks to the Foreign Secretary: "Look here, we've
decided that this isn't to be a private room any more; and you're to
put your cards on the table and then we can all take a hand." Whereon
Sir Edward Grey replies: "What, and let my opponents see them too?" In
this context one may be permitted to recall a picture, published about
the same time, of a constable applying a familiar test to a belated
reveller protesting his sobriety:--
CONSTABLE: "Can you say 'British Constitution'?"
BELATED ONE (_with strongest "Die-Hard" convictions_): "There
ishn't one now!"
_Punch's_ Almanack for 1912 treats of current events in a light-hearted
spirit. There is one picture, however, with an ominous and prophetic
heading, "Period--The War of 1914," in which an irate M.F.H. abuses the
invaders--unmistakable Germans--for heading the fox. The artist, Mr. J.
L. C. Booth, a very gallant gentleman, fell in Gallipoli in 1915. But
there were other and more unmistakable omens at the opening of the New
Year, when M. Caillaux, before resigning, had attempted to reconstruct
his Cabinet with M. Delcassé as Foreign Minister--a situation typified
by _Punch_ in his cartoon of "The return of the scapegoat." M. Caillaux
resigned under a cloud; M. Delcassé failed to form a Government,
but remained on as Minister of Marine under M. Poincaré. For the
moment Germany's troubles at home diverted attention from her foreign
relations. The demands of the Socialists are illustrated in the
dialogue between the Kaiser on the summit of a rocky peak and a figure
climbing up to the summit. "What business have you here?" asks the
Kaiser, and the Socialist answers: "I, too, want 'a place in the sun.'"
[Illustration: THE NEW DIPLOMACY
ADVANCED DEMOCRAT (to Foreign Secretary): "Look here, we've
decided that this isn't to be a private room any more and you're to put
your cards on the table and then we can all take a hand." FOREIGN
SECRETARY: "What, and let my opponents see them too?"]
In March the Navy estimates issued by Mr. Churchill as First Lord were
expressly stated to be conditional upon the naval programmes of other
nations: _Punch_ accordingly showed him as the Plain Dealer hoisting
as his signal "England expects that every nation will do its duty--by
not increasing its armaments." The rival views on naval concentration
are shown a little later in the "Geography Lesson" given by "Dr."
Kitchener--Lord Kitchener had gone to Egypt as Agent-General in the
previous year--to Master Churchill and Master Asquith. "What do you
know about the Mediterranean?" he asks, and Master Churchill replies:
"Well, it looks a nice place for ships; but, to tell you the truth,
we've been concentrating our attention on the North Sea lately, haven't
we, Herbert?" and Master Asquith replies: "That is so."
The appointment of Baron Marschall von Bieberstein as German Ambassador
in London was well received. He was Germany's strongest diplomatist.
He had raised the prestige of his country to an unexampled pitch at
Constantinople without losing the respect of his British colleagues,
and was credited with the desire to promote a better understanding with
England. Unfortunately he died suddenly before _Punch's_ expectations
could be realized. Meanwhile Mr. Haldane at the War Office had "turned
turtle (dove)" to such an extent that in _Punch's_ view his occupation
was nearly gone. Yet the travesty of Dicksee's "Harmony," with the
Kaiser playing on a Krupp organ to a stout and adoring Germany, is
by no means reassuring. Consols were steadily "slumping," and the
organized resistance of Ulster was already regarded as serious.
_Punch's_ views in the course of the next few years underwent a good
deal of modification, but he was never sympathetic to Sir Edward
Carson. When the old cry, "Ulster will fight," was raised to discredit
the son of the statesman who had invented the phrase, _Punch_ called it
"a silly game. If Ulster fights against free speech, then Ulster will
be wrong." When the "Covenant" of Resistance to Home Rule was signed
by the Ulster Loyalists in September, 1912, _Punch_ satirized their
action under the heading "Ulster will write," with General Carson on
horseback, waving a pen and crying, "Up, nibs, and at 'em!"
[Illustration: THE BOILING POINT]
_Punch_, it is to be feared, did not credit the Balkan League with
exalted ideals in entering on the conflict with Turkey in 1912.
Bulgaria, in his cartoon of August 28, challenges Turkey, at grips with
Italy, to mortal combat, and Turkey replies: "Certainly," adding to
Italy, "I hope you won't think me discourteous if I cannot continue
to give you my undivided attention." Two months later we are shown
the Great Powers all sitting on the seething pot of "Balkan troubles"
but unable to keep the lid down. By November a "New Eagle" with four
heads--Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece--is seen approaching the
door of the Council of Europe. More acute in its reading of the signs
of the times is the picture of Turkey, a sinister figure, rubbing his
hands as he reads the placard: "Austria threatens Serbia. European
Crisis," and saying, "Good! If only all those other Christian nations
get at one another's throats, I may have a dog's chance yet"--a
situation realized by the launching of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia
in July, 1914. Early in December an armistice was agreed to, and by
the middle of the month a conference of Balkan delegates assembled in
London. The deliberations of the Peace Conference continued till the
end of the year, but in the Christmas cartoon of "Prince Charming and
the Sleeping Beauty," Sir Edward Grey has not yet succeeded in inducing
Peace to wake up. As a matter of fact, the Conference was suspended on
January 6, 1913, on the 26th the Balkan delegates broke off further
negotiations with the Porte, and on February 3 war was resumed.
_Punch's_ comment on the threatened intervention of Roumania was
severe but not unmerited; the "Bayard of Bukharest" observes politely
to Bulgaria, "I am sure, dear old friend, you will wish to recompense
me for not stabbing you in the back from behind in the previous bout,
and I am therefore proposing to anticipate your kindness by making off
with your coat (Silistria)." Sir Edward Grey's hope, expressed in the
House of Commons in March, that Turkey would now confine its energies
to "consolidating" itself in Asia Minor, met with ironical approval
from _Punch_, who in the following month represented Turkey responding
to Europa's complacent assurance that the war was "practically over"
with the still more complacent comment: "My felicitations, Madam.
Everything seems to point to the outbreak of a sanguinary peace." And
unfortunately the cynical anticipation was only too well verified in
the sequel. King Nicholas's defiance marked the opening stages of the
new conflict--typified in the Montenegrin bantam blocking the road
for the great Powers, but getting out of the way at the last moment.
Skutari was occupied by troops of the Powers on May 14, and on May
30 the Treaty of Peace between the Allies and the Porte was signed
at St. James's Palace. But _Punch_, in his cartoon of "Peace comes
to Town," was not unfair in making Sir Edward Grey adjure the fair
damsel riding behind him to sit close and not slip off as on the last
occasion they fared that way together. So many outstanding questions
remained unsettled that a pacific solution was impossible; the Balkan
war was resumed on June 30. Bulgaria put up a great fight against the
Serbians and Greeks, but the advance of the fresh Roumanian army into
her territory rendered her position desperate. _Punch_ had already
shown Turkey offering its services as benevolent mediator to the Balkan
"allies." Before the end of the month the Turks had re-entered the
field and re-occupied Adrianople only three months after they had been
driven out. "Quite like old times, being back here," the Turk says to
Dame Europa in _Punch's_ cartoon, and when Europa replies, "Ah! but
you'll be kicked out, you know," he retorts calmly, "Well, that'll
be like old times too." An armistice was signed on July 31, and the
second Treaty of Peace was signed by Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro
and Serbia on August 10. Bulgaria, whose losses in the two wars had
been very heavy, was seriously penalized by the new adjustment of
boundaries and the consequent loss of territory. Roumania was cordially
congratulated by the Kaiser for her "wise and statesmanlike policy,"
and Greece, who gained a vast acquisition of territory around Salonika,
expressed through the mouth of King Constantine--King George had been
assassinated at Salonika in March--her indebtedness to Germany for
the war training of her officers. _Punch's_ comment was sardonic. In
"_Deutschland über Alles_" the King of the Hellenes observes to the
Kaiser, "Our success, as you know, was entirely due to you," and the
Kaiser replies: "Thanks, thanks," adding, aside, "I suppose he can't be
referring to our organization of the Turkish army."
[Sidenote: _The Balkan Cockpit_]
The attitude of the Concert of Powers over the question of Adrianople
is indicated in the cartoon in which Sir Edward Grey tells the Turk,
the man in possession, that he will have to go, but that the Powers
haven't decided who was to turn him out. European intervention proving
hopeless, the matter was left for direct negotiations between Bulgaria
and Turkey, with the result that the new frontier gave Turkey about one
hundred square miles more territory together with Adrianople. _Punch_,
on the eve of the signature of the treaty, anticipated the triumph of
Turkey, who is seen pasting up, on the door of the Hotel Adrianople,
a notice, "Under the same old management," over a previous notice,
"Under entirely new management," and expressing regret at being unable
to oblige Europa by retiring. Europa, with the Treaty of London in her
hand, saves her face by replying with dignity: "Not at all. You may
remember that at the very start I strongly insisted on the _status
quo_." The Powers had decided at the close of 1912 that Albania was
to receive autonomy, but the International Commission of Control was
unable to check guerrilla fighting between Serbians and Albanians.
Europa found it, in _Punch's_ phrase, a very difficult task to hush
the infant Albania; and Prince William of Wied, chosen by the Powers
as sovereign, or "Mpret" of Albania in November, 1913, excited more
ridicule than sympathy during his brief and troubled tenure of office.
The Balkan wars, which began in an organized attempt to liberate
Christians from the Turkish yoke, developed into an internecine
struggle for aggrandisement amongst the members of the League. The
Balkan Peninsula unhappily justified its description as "the cockpit of
Europe," or, to quote the words of a traveller who visited it between
the first and second wars: "one vast madhouse, where sanity seems
ridiculous and folly wisdom." The Treaty of Bukharest, so far from
allaying discord, only fomented the ambitions which precipitated the
world conflict.
[Sidenote: _Ulster Bars the Way_]
France's reversion to three years' service--applauded by _Punch_ in
his cartoon "_Pour la Patrie_"--had been countered by the German Army
Bill introduced by the new German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, in a
somewhat ominous speech in April. _Punch_ had already symbolized the
acceleration of the armament race in his picture of Hans and Jacques,
each bowed down under a tremendous burden of warlike equipment,
exclaiming in rueful unison: "And I hear there's more to come."
Mr. Churchill's scheme of a naval holiday inspired hopes which were
partially shared by _Punch_, but damped by the German Chancellor's
speech on the ground that the idea had not been taken up as practical
in England either by Parliament or public opinion. The renewal of
Mr. Churchill's suggestion later in the year met with an even more
unfavourable reception. Admiral Tirpitz makes his _début_ in _Punch_ as
an apostle of German naval expansion; General Bernhardi had followed up
his notorious book on _Germany and the Next War_ with articles pointing
to Ireland as an ally of Germany in the enemy's camp; and the outrages
on Alsatian civilians by German officers at Zabern and Metz emphasized
the danger of militarism at home as well as abroad. The incident was
historic because it was the first notable example of the cleavage
between the army and the people in Germany, the Radicals and Socialists
having carried a vote of censure in the Reichstag against the Imperial
Chancellor. The war closed all ranks for a time; but Zabern was a straw
which showed how the wind was beginning to blow--the wind which became
a tempest in the autumn of 1918.
If Great Britain in 1913 was not exactly a cockpit or a madhouse, she
was not without her domestic troubles. One of the earliest cartoons
of the year exhibits the Home Rule Bill advancing under the shield of
the Parliament Act. The advance was barred by Ulster, for this was the
year of the formation of the Provisional Government, the enrolment of
the Ulster volunteers, proclamations against the importation of arms,
the emergence of "King Carson," and a general recrudescence of party
acrimony. _Punch_, in a laudable desire to see ourselves as others see
us, depicted in "A Nation of Fire-Eaters" a peaceful Teuton horrified
by a placard enumerating all the "armies" in Great Britain--the Ulster
Volunteer army, Miss Sylvia Pankhurst's army, Mr. Devlin's army,
etc. The spirit of the picture is ironical, but it throws a light on
Bernhardi's reading of the signs of the times in Ireland. In July Mr.
Asquith is seen endeavouring to cajole the Orange Girl, who looks
at him sullenly; and another picture in the same number shows Sir
Edward Carson arming "Loyal Ulster." In October the possibility of
a settlement on the basis of the exclusion of North-East Ulster is
indicated in "Second Thoughts"; Mr. John Redmond is shown driving four
pigs--Connaught, Munster, Leinster and S.W. Ulster--through the gate
of Home Rule. N.E. Ulster is heading in a contrary direction, and Mr.
Redmond wonders whether he should "lave this contrairy little divil
loose the way he'd come back by himself aftherwards." A month or so
later Mr. Birrell warns Carson not to tempt him or "on my honour and
conscience I shall have to put you through this." _This_ being the
"ever open door" of a prison with the inscription "All fear abandon ye
who enter here"--a reference to the speedy release of Mr. Jim Larkin,
the turbulent leader of the Dublin strike. Here the satire is aimed at
the futile leniency of the Chief Secretary to all disturbers of the
peace. Three weeks later, alluding to the prohibited importation of
arms into Ireland, _Punch_ ridicules the inconsistency of Sir Edward
Carson, who, armed himself to the teeth, is warning Customs Officer
Birrell to search Mr. Redmond, a harmless-looking passenger, carrying a
small dispatch-case: "That's just the sort of bag he'd have a couple of
howitzers concealed in." Mr. Bonar Law's support of Sir Edward Carson's
campaign is ingeniously shown in "The New Brunswicker"--after Millais'
well-known picture--deserting the Tariff Reform lady, "but only for a
time," in order to go to the Ulster Wars.
[Illustration: "OLIVER ASKS FOR" LESS
JOHN BULL (fed up): "Please, sir, need I have quite so many
good things?"
MR. LLOYD GEORGE: "Yes, you must; and there's more to come."]
The last cartoon of the year, "The Third Stage," exhibits the main
legislative preoccupations of the year in the form of a coach with
the three Bills--Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment and Plural
Voting--seated abreast under the hood of the Parliament Act with 1914
as postilion. _Punch's_ view was that the electorate as a whole were
somewhat weary of the legislative activities of the Government. In 1912
he had represented John Bull as Oliver asking not for more but less;
in the summer of 1913 he showed John Bull disappointed with Mr. Lloyd
George's "rare and refreshing fruit" on the ground that it contained
"too many pips," _à propos_ of Mr. Asquith's promise to amend the
Insurance Act. The conscientious M.P., in the cartoon of a few weeks
later, who presents himself at the Pay Office expressing his fear
that he won't "really be earning his salary this year with no autumn
session," is bluntly told by Paymaster Bull, "sick with legislation,"
not to worry about that. "You go and take a nice long holiday; the
country needs it." There were other causes of weariness besides
excessive legislation. The Marconi scandal was an incubus which lay
heavily on the Government throughout the year. In the early stages of
the inquiry, _Punch_ showed Rumour presenting her season-ticket, and
disgusted at being denied admittance, as the Committee were about to
"get to business." The amount of space devoted to the question in the
Press is satirized by the announcement of the forthcoming publication
of "The Marconi Affair in a Nut-shell," by Messrs. Garvin and Maxse, in
968 pages. When the Report appeared, _Punch_ thought the whitewash had
been laid on too thick:
"More Whitewash!" said the Falconer,[2]
Doing the Party trick;
"Throw it about in bucketfuls;
Some of it's bound to stick."
"Very poor art!" the public cried;
"You've laid it on too thick!"
Even more hostile is the cartoon "Blameless Telegraphy," in which
John Bull addresses Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Rufus Isaacs, dressed as
telegraph boys with "Marconi, U.S.A.," on their caps: "My boys, you
leave the court without a stain--except, perhaps, for the whitewash."
There was no whitewash in Lord Robert Cecil's minority Report; and the
reverberations of the Marconi affair did not die down for many months,
nor did _Punch_ wish that they should--witness his ironic cartoon of
the Master of Elibank, luxuriating in a hammock in tropical Bogota, and
expressing his keen disappointment that the inquiry had been closed.
[Footnote 2: Mr. James Falconer, the Liberal Member for Forfarshire,
1909-1918.]
[Illustration: THE WINGS OF VICTORY
BRITANNIA: "These things seem all the rage in Paris and
Berlin; and I really can't afford to be out of it!"]
_A propos_ of the theft of the "Mona Lisa" portrait from the Louvre,
_Punch_ portrayed Mr. Asquith as "Il Giocondo" with an inscrutable and
enigmatic smile. The internal embarrassments of the Cabinet certainly
must have taxed the smiling capacities of the Premier to the utmost,
to say nothing of Ulster and the militant suffragists. Yet when Dame
Curzon is depicted tempting Master Asquith to take a joy-ride on a
donkey labelled "General Election," Master Asquith replies that he is
not taking any violent exercise this season, but thinks of waiting till
1915. There are not a few people who in the interests of the country
are very thankful that the Liberals were still in power and not in
opposition when the great decision had to be made a year later. There
is a touch of unconscious and complacent prophecy in the picture of
Britannia girding on "The Wings of Victory"--the new rage in Paris and
Berlin--"because she can't afford to be out of it." It took us four
years to make good the title, but it was done in the end.
The gap that separates us from pre-war years is illustrated in many
curious ways. For example, in March, 1913, _Punch_ has a picture of a
lady asking to have a cheque for £15 cashed all in gold "if you've got
it." In those golden days of peace such a question was simply a mark of
feminine ignorance; two years later it would have argued insanity.
[Sidenote: _England's Detachment_]
In the seven months that remained before the outbreak of the Great
War you may search the pages of _Punch_ in vain for evidences of
a provocative attitude towards Germany or of anything indicating
national preparedness for the conflict. _Punch_, as a mirror of
middle-class public opinion, faithfully reflected our domestic troubles
and preoccupations. International politics are conspicuously absent
from the Almanack of Christmas, 1913, except for a picture of Sir
Edward Grey producing doves from a hat labelled Balkan Crisis, and
portraits of Ferdinand of Bulgaria, the Sultan of Turkey and the
King of Montenegro, offering tickets of admission to the Concert of
Europe. Comment, criticism and satire are monopolized by Ulster,
labour troubles, Marconi and oil scandals, the dancing mania, social
extravagance and the spread of the cinema habit. The first cartoon of
the New Year of 1914 is devoted to Mr. Lloyd George's land campaign;
there is nothing aggressive in the picture of Mr. Churchill as a
sailor surrounded by a Tory chorus singing, "You've made me love you;
I didn't want to do it"--_à propos_ of the Navy Estimates; nothing
provocative in "The Price of Admiralty," where Britannia, outside a
door marked "Cabinet Council (Private and Controversial)," is seen
waiting to know whether she is to lay down the ships she wants, on
which _Mr. Punch_ adds "or lay down your trident." No serious misgiving
is aroused by Turkey's purchase of a _Dreadnought_, and _Punch's_
comment on General Leonard Wood's pessimistic report on the practically
unarmed condition of the U.S.A. army, if not exactly unsympathetic, is
light-hearted and detached.
Home Rule and the attitude of Ulster diverted the eyes of England
from the Continent. The Zabern incident did not escape _Punch's_ eye,
but his comment, which suggests an imaginary interchange of garrisons
between Germany and England, was too fantastic to be really pointed;
and the announcement that Sir Edward Grey would accompany the King
on his visit to Paris in April passes with a brief compliment to the
Foreign Minister on his well-earned little treat.
There is an excellent burlesque account of a Cabinet Council in
February, illustrating the temperaments of the different Ministers--the
imperturbable and irrepressible equanimity of Mr. Lloyd George; the
inarticulate disapproval of Lord Crewe; the egotism of Mr. Burns; the
bland ignorance of Mr. Birrell. But foreign politics are not once
mentioned: the Premier and his Cabinet are chiefly concerned with
discussing their detractors in the Press and the Ulster problem.
Incidentally Mr. Lloyd George scouts the proposal to revive the
Heptarchy because it was a Saxon, not a Celtic institution. This is
all irresponsible burlesque, but it was highly intelligent burlesque.
In Parliament, members were not worrying about the German menace.
They were more interested in Lord Murray's statement about the
Marconi business, the debate on contributions to the Party funds and
the distribution of honours; above all, in the Government's plan of
amending Home Rule so as to conciliate Ulster. _Punch_, still inclined
to be critical of the Northern loyalists, begs Miss Ulster not to turn
up her nose at the pretty bouquet of concessions offered her by the
Premier, but to have a good look at them first.
The Government certainly did not expect war, but whether by lucky
chance or in a moment of wise prevision, a momentous decision was taken
by the Admiralty in March:--
"The Admiralty has decided that, in the place of the grand
manoeuvres this year, there shall be a surprise mobilisation. Last
year's manoeuvres were, we believe, something of a fiasco, but to
ensure the success of the surprise mobilisation, five months' previous
notice is given."
_Punch's_ comment, at any rate, is free from any bellicose imputations.
He, at least, had no inkling of the larger surprise which was to be
sprung on us from another quarter. The Supplementary Naval Estimates,
raising the total to 48 millions, and providing for reserves of oil
fuel and the very modest new aircraft programme, were passed by a six
to one majority. Labour members registered a protest, but nothing
was said about Germany. Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment and Plural
Voting still were the burning questions of the hour. As for Home Rule,
it is strange to read how, in the debate on the second reading in
March, Mr. William O'Brien referred to Ulster as "the new 'Orange'
Free State, which has just received official recognition." _Punch_
records the phrase; also the vote of censure brought against Mr. Lloyd
George "on grounds of repeated inaccuracy, particularly on account of
his ineradicable tendency to speak disrespectfully of dukes"--a vote
negatived by none too large a majority. Mr. Balfour meanwhile was
disporting himself at Nice, and his absence was much commented on:
it was not exactly a case of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning;
but _Punch_, under the heading of "Mr. Balfour's Mixed Double Life,"
made fair game of his giving up to lawn tennis what was meant for his
country. Another conspicuous absentee from England at this period of
storm and stress was Lord Northcliffe. A notice appeared in the _Daily
Mail_ in the following words:--
Lord Northcliffe rarely sees and never reads a letter, being mainly
nowadays engaged in golf and travel.
_Punch_ treated the announcement with a sad want of respect, as who
should say, "_O si sic semper!_" The most curious thing in _Punch's_
pages for March is the picture of the Recruiting Sergeant addressing a
rather loutish-looking youth: "Now I can tell character when I see it,
so mark my words. If you join now, you'll be a swankin' general in five
years." Thus not for the first time did _Punch_, writing as a jester,
prove an unconscious prophet.
[Sidenote: _An Unconscious Prophecy_]
[Illustration: "THERE'S MANY A SLIP ..."]
Credit is assigned to Mr. Churchill for "calling in a new element to
redress the balance of the old"--Neptune emerging from the deep to
gaze at his new allies, the aeroplane and airship. But attention was
abruptly switched off from the Admiralty to the War Office by the
troubles at the Curragh Camp, the threatened resignations of General
Gough and other officers as a protest against the coercion of Ulster,
and by the blunder and resignation of Mr. Seely. _Punch_ applauded the
spirit both of Ulster and the Army: in his cartoon, "Many a slip,"
he showed Mr. Asquith, while offering the cup to Mr. John Redmond,
confronted by a hand with a sword marked "Army Resignations." _Punch_
recognized the promptitude with which Mr. Asquith came to the rescue
by doubling the functions of Premier and War Minister, but was less
benevolent in his gloss on the comment of a faithful supporter who
declared that "the best we can do is to keep our eye on Mr. Asquith":--
BALLAD OF THE WATCHFUL EYE
O keep your eye on David,
The demigod of Wales,
Before whose furious onset
Dukes turn their timid tails;
Whom Merioneth mystics
Praise in delirious distichs
And, matched with whose statistics,
Munchausen's glory pales.
O keep your eye on Winston,
And mind you keep it tight,
For nearly every Saturday
You'll find he takes to flight;
Now eloquent and thrilling,
Now simply cheap or filling,
And now bent on distilling
The purest Party spite.
O keep your eye on Haldane,
Ex-Minister of War,
The sleek and supple-minded
And suave Lord Chancellor;
Whose brain, so keen and subtle,
Moves swifter than a shuttle,
Obscuring, like the cuttle,
Things that were plain before.
* * *
O keep your eye on Birrell,
So wholly free from guile,
Conspicuous by his absence
From Erin's peaceful isle;
Who wakes from floor to rafter
The House to heedless laughter,
Careless of what comes after
Can he but raise a smile.
O keep your eye on Masterman,
Dear David's henchman leal,
Whose piety and "uplift"
Makes ribald Tories squeal;
In every public function
Displaying the conjunction
Of perfect moral unction
With perfect Party zeal.
Last, keep your eye on Asquith
And he will bring you through,
No matter what his colleagues
May say or think or do;
For in the dirtiest weather,
He moulted not a feather
And safely kept together
His variegated crew.
_Mr. Punch_ certainly kept his eye on Lord Haldane to good
purpose--witness the stanzas "To the Cabinet (suggested by a recent
doctoring of Hansard)":--
The judgment of the People's "Yea" or "Nay"
Wherefore should virtuous men like _you_ shun?
You are--or so you confidently say--
Prepared for Dissolution.
Then snatch a hint from Haldane's little fake,
Who glanced with eye alert and beady at
His speech in proof, and, for appearance' sake
Added the word "_immediate_."
To persons with short memories it may be needful to recall the fact
that, when challenged in the House of Lords, Lord Haldane had said on
March 23:--
"No orders were issued, no orders are likely to be issued, and no
orders will be issued for the coercion of Ulster."
[Illustration: THE ULSTER KING-AT-ARMS]
But when his speech was printed in the weekly record, it was found that
the word "immediate" had been added before "coercion," thus showing
that self-protection is often the most dangerous and damaging policy.
[Sidenote: _Ulster and the "Plot"_]
_Punch_ had applauded the spirit of Ulster, but he did not approve of
the uncompromising policy of her leader. In "The Fight for the Banner,"
Mr. John Redmond and Sir Edward Carson are shown pulling the flag of
"Peace for Ireland" asunder, while John Bull remarks: "This tires
me. Why can't you carry it between you? Neither of you can carry it
alone." By way of contrast, one may note the cartoon "After Ten Years,"
with France and Britannia clasping hands in celebration of the solidity
and endurance of the _Entente_.
"For the third time in the course of three successive Sessions the
Home Rule Bill passes the second reading stage." So _Punch_ wrote of
the "business done" in Parliament on April 6. But the arbitrament of
the vote did not allay the suspicions of the Opposition. April and
May were given over to acrimonious discussions of the alleged "Plot"
by the Government to overawe Ulster by armed occupation. _Punch_
admired the imperturbability of Mr. Asquith, who is shown combining
in his own person the _rôles_ of prisoner, judge and jury. Mr. Austen
Chamberlain demanded a judicial inquiry into the "Plot," but was beaten
by eighty votes in a House of 608 members. Simultaneously _Punch_
depicted Sir Edward Carson as the Ulster King-at-Arms, armed and
defiant, and declared through the mouth of John Bull that "he was not
going to have Civil War to please either Radical Extremists or Tory
Die-Hards." Simultaneously, too, _Punch_ printed a most eulogistic
notice of Mr. Norman Angell's _Foundations of International Policy_,
in which the reviewer declared that if he were a politician he would
"move for a further supplementary Naval Estimate to expend the price
of a _Dreadnought_ in distributing this fighting pacificist's book to
all journalists, attachés, clergymen, bazaar-openers, club oracles,
professors, headmasters, and other obvious people in both Germany and
Britain."
Mr. Lloyd George's last Budget topped two hundred millions, but showed
a small surplus. _Punch_ portrayed the income-tax payer as an old cow
complaining that "it isn't milking, it's murder." The enhancement of
the death duties _Punch_ regarded as a raising of the fares to Styx,
which would cost the Plutocratic Shades more.
The debates on the Home Rule Bill suggested to _Punch_ a contrast
between 1906 and 1914, the efforts of the Liberals to improve the
situation having only resulted in turmoil, discontent and bitter
recrimination. The third reading was carried on May 25 by 351 votes to
274, Mr. William O'Brien having cheerfully remarked that the Bill,
if it became an Act, would be born with a rope round its neck. Heated
discussions took place over the refusal of the Government to disclose
the details of the Amending Bill. The Speaker had invited Mr. Asquith
to supply further particulars, as the Opposition had insistently
demanded, but, according to _Punch_, the Premier's luminous and
courteous response did not add a syllable to the information already
vouchsafed, whereupon Mr. Bonar Law had asked the Speaker to "let the
curtain be rung down on a contemptible farce." The third reading of the
Welsh Disestablishment Bill had been carried a week earlier; the Plural
Voters Bill passed the same stage three weeks later. For the rest, the
main topics which engaged attention in the House were gun-running,
Suffragist outrages, and the latest amendment of the much-amended
Insurance Act. "Scenes" were not infrequent, and _Punch_ deplores the
"pot-house manners" displayed by members on both sides. The emergence
of the National Volunteers, a counterblast to the force enrolled by
the Ulster Loyalists, added to the general disquiet, but there were no
public signs of any general awakening to the impending catastrophe. Sir
Percy Scott's letter on the submarine menace created a considerable
stir, but _Punch_, like the majority of his readers, refused to treat
it seriously. The efficiency of the Territorial Army as seen from the
inside is illustrated in the _cri de coeur_ ascribed to one of the
rank and file during the course of the manoeuvres: "Thank 'Evin we've
got a Nivy!" There is a jocular reference in mid-June to the toast
"Der Tag" in German war vessels, and an unconscious prophecy in the
warning of an old Lancashire lady to a young friend intending to go
by an excursion to London: "Doan't thee goà to London: thee stop in
owd England." On June 10, it may be added, a "Peace Centenary Costume
Ball" was held in the Albert Hall in honour of the 100th anniversary
of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and the lady who
represented Britannia carried a palm branch instead of the customary
trident.
[Sidenote: _Midsummer Madness_]
With the opening of July the London season was in full fling; the
pleasure-hunt had never been so unbridled; midsummer madness was at
its height. Society, bejewelled as never before, was given up to the
cult of the Russian Ballet and the worship of Chaliapine. _Punch's_
"Holiday Pages" make strange reading, emphasizing, as they do, the
passion for amusement, freak and fancy costumes, the cinema craze and
"full joy days." _Punch's_ staff did not escape the infection, and one
of them writes from a golfing resort:--
"_Carpe diem_"--yes, that's the motto.
"Work be jiggered!" and likewise "What ho!"
_I'm not going back till I've jolly well got to!_
Strauss's _Joseph_ had been produced in June by the Russian Ballet, and
lent point to "Blanche's" letter on the "Friendship Fête," an imaginary
entertainment organized "to celebrate our not having had any scraps
with any foreign country for some little time" by the performance of a
Kamschatkan opera-ballet. The satire is effective, but it is largely
unconscious or subconscious. The Smith-Carpentier fight made a greater
impression on the man in the street than the murder of the Crown Prince
Ferdinand at Sarajevo.
The death of Mr. Chamberlain, who, after long enforced absence from the
political arena, passed away on July 2, hushed political strife for a
moment. All sections were united in deploring the tragic eclipse of a
great fighter and a great man who, in _Punch's_ words, "loved his Party
well but loved his country more."
Turkey appears early in the month as unready to fight Greece before the
autumn, "when the ships come home." The cartoons until the last issue
in July deal with the Budget and Home Rule. Mr. Asquith on July 13
announced the winding up of business; there would be no autumn session,
but Parliament would reassemble early in the winter. On July 29 the
chief cartoon, "What of the Dawn?" deals with the anxieties of Ireland,
and the most important event chronicled in the "Essence of Parliament"
was the Premier's announcement that, on the initiative of the King,
a conference on the Ulster question between the British and Irish
parties had been arranged to meet at Buckingham Palace.
[Illustration: THE POWER BEHIND
AUSTRIA (at the ultimatum stage): "I don't quite like his
attitude. Somebody must be backing him."]
[Sidenote: _On the Eve_]
[Illustration: MUTUAL SERVICE
BRITANNIA (to Peace): "I've been doing my best for you in
Europe. Please do your best for me in Ireland."]
_Punch_ was not wholly blind to the peril of Serbia. In his second
cartoon, "The Power Behind," we see the Austrian Eagle threatening
the little Serbian bird and suspecting that someone must be backing
him--the someone being the Russian Bear hidden behind a rock. The
immediate situation was not misread, but _Punch_, in his own words,
was in an "irrepressible holiday mood," and little thought that on the
day on which his cartoon appeared Austria would declare war on Serbia.
Yet even this warning did not bring home to _Punch_ the imminence
of the "Grand Smash." The makers of wars have no consideration for
the producers of weekly papers. The issue, dated August 5, had gone
to press before Germany declared war on Russia and France, and was
published only a few hours before Great Britain was at war with
Germany. The cartoon of the week shows Britannia appealing to Peace
to do the best for her in _Ireland_, having done her best for Peace
in Europe.[3] The "Essence of Parliament" is more concerned with
gun-running at Clontarf than the prospect of a European convulsion,
and the verses on the "Logic of Ententes: composed on what looks like
the eve of a general European War," and intended to reflect the views
of an average British patriot, are governed by the feeling that the
whole thing is "an awful bore." Britons "never can be Slavs," and the
last couplet runs thus:--
"Well, if I must, I shall have to fight
For the love of a bounding Balkanite."
An even more detached and ironical note is sounded in the fantasy
headed "Armageddon"--a satire on Porkins, a blatant young golfing "nut"
who thinks that England needs a war to cure her of flabbiness. The
granting of his desire is traced to the cynical intervention of the
Gods of Olympus in promoting a little scrap over a love affair in an
obscure corner of the Balkans:--
And when a year later the hundred-thousandth English mother woke up to
read that her boy had been shot, I am afraid she shed foolish tears
and thought that the world had come to an end. Poor shortsighted
creature! She didn't realize that Porkins, who had marched round the
links in ninety-six the day before, was now thoroughly braced up.
[Footnote 3: The present writer was at Bayreuth in the week before the
War. After the declaration of war on Serbia by Austria and in view of
its inevitable consequences, the Germans, in conversation and in their
Press, were unanimous in "banking on" the neutrality of England on the
ground of her domestic embarrassments in Ulster and the friendliness of
the Liberal Government.]
These two utterances may show that _Punch_ had failed in reading the
signs of the times, and did not render justice to the youth of the
country. I prefer to regard them as proofs that _Punch_, like the vast
majority of his fellow-countrymen, neither expected nor desired war.
CAPITAL AND LABOUR
The fervid Radicalism of _Punch's_ earlier years had always been
tempered by a distrust of "agitators" and socialistic experiments. It
is impossible to deny that, in the period under review in this volume,
this distrust gained in force if not in vehemence. There is nothing
so bitter as the sketch of the delegate which appeared in the days of
Douglas Jerrold (see Vol. I, p. 50), but the general attitude of the
paper to the working man is decidedly less sympathetic. This change can
be illustrated negatively as well as positively; less space is devoted
to "the people," and more to "Society"--though in many cases it is
suburban society--and to the middle classes. The references to Labour
exhibit an increasing tendency to criticize and denounce trade union
tyranny, socialistic legislation, the improvidence and extravagance of
highly paid workmen, and "ergophobia" (as _Punch_ academically calls
work-shyness)--a habit which he describes as early as 1892 as "the new
employment of being 'unemployed.'" Yet if _Punch_ was increasingly
critical of Labour--organized Labour--he was very far from being a
thick-and-thin champion of Capital. Greedy employers and directors are
never spared. The agricultural depression in 1892 furnishes him with
the occasion for a vigorous onslaught on railway rates. Agriculture is
shown as a female figure, bound hand and foot by Foreign Competition,
lying prostrate on the track and about to be run down by an engine
labelled Railway Rates. In 1895 the verses and cartoon inspired by
lock-outs on the Clyde are equally severe on the employers. _Punch_
condemns the action of "crass and unpatriotic capital," and shows
Britannia rebuking the shipbuilders who are playing into Germany's
hands by assisting the growth of her navy. In 1896, under the heading
of "The Millions to the Millionaires," _Punch_ takes for his text
an actual appeal made by the working men of Walworth on the death
of Baron Hirsch, _à propos_ of his munificent bequests to _his_
countrymen, and holds up the example for imitation. The continuance
of the habit of "slumming," out of curiosity rather than good will,
prompts in 1897 a satirical inversion of the organized visits to the
East End. _Punch's_ "West End Exploration Agency, Ltd.," provided
"Night Tours through Belgravia and Lightest London" with the purpose
of proving "the depressing monotony and triviality of the existence to
which Fashion's merciless decree condemns her countless thousands of
white slaves."
The debate in the Commons in the same year over Lord Penrhyn's dispute
with his quarrymen found _Punch_ decidedly hostile to the young Tory
lions who supported that inflexible peer. When in 1900 the Coal Mining
Companies in Fife declared a dividend of 50 per cent., and the price of
coal was still rising, _Punch_ castigated the greed of the owners. In
1907 the miners are exempted from any share of the responsibility for
the high cost of coal. The triple Cerberus who dominates the situation
is made up of the colliery owner, the coal merchant and the railway
company. But as the price this joint monster exacted was only 30s. a
ton--exorbitant for the time, no doubt--it is hard for this generation
to share _Punch's_ sympathy for the consumer. As late as 1912, when the
coal crisis again became acute, _Punch_, though resenting the increased
resort to the strike weapon, represents the merchant profiteer as in
clover while Britannia is the victim of his avarice.
[Sidenote: _Underpaid Women Workers_]
On behalf of _unorganized_ labour, when it was unfairly exploited by
the employer, _Punch_ continued to lift up his voice in the old strain.
In 1893 the hard case of the shopgirls, slave-driven by exacting
masters, always standing, too tired at the end of the week to profit
by Sunday, prompts him to a plea for a true Day of Rest. The verses,
like the "Cry of the City Clerk," are vitiated by their sentimentality.
There is more vigour in the lines "'Arriet on Labour" in the same year,
which show that the new type of woman was not confined to the upper
classes. 'Arriet is a workgirl who works hard, loves her freedom and
nights off, has no respect for spouting Labour candidates, and no envy
of married drudges:--
Labour? Well, yus, the best of hus must work; yer carn't git quit
of it;
And you and me, Poll, like the rest, must do our little bit of it.
But oh, I loves my _freedom_, Poll, my hevenings hoff is 'eaven;
But wives and slavies ain't allowed even one day in seven.
Jigger the men! Sam spouts and shouts about the 'Onest Worker.
That always means a Man, of course--_he's a smart Man, the shirker.
But when a Man lives upon his wife, and skulks around his diggings,
Who is the "'Onest Worker" then? Yours truly,_
'ARRIET 'IGGINGS.
Another "hard case" exposed by _Punch_ in the following year was that
of the rural schoolmistress, contrasted unfavourably with Crabbe's
version. _Punch_ took his cue from a paper read by Dr. Macnamara at
a meeting of the N.U.T. and drew a lamentable picture of the weary,
overworked and miserably underpaid teacher, "passing _poor_ on £40 a
year." The picture was obviously drawn at second-hand, but the line in
which the schoolmistress is described as "a lonely, tired, certificated
slave" was an excellent summary of a real hardship. Women workers were
not only slave-driven by employers and underpaid by the State; they
were also handicapped by the competition of their sisters who only
worked for pocket-money. This, at least, was the burden of a complaint
made by an old-fashioned woman in the _Daily Chronicle_ in the autumn
of 1895:--
"In every branch of work we see well-to-do women crowding into the
ranks of competition, in consequence of which wages are lowered, and
women who really want work are left to starve."
This letter inspired _Punch_ to deliver a fierce homily in verse on
the wickedness of well-to-do women "playing at work," to the detriment
of their poor sisters. As a set-off, however, we may note that in 1897
_Punch_ condemns mistresses for exploiting "Lady servants," getting
them to do double the work for half the ordinary wages because of their
inability to stand up for themselves. Sweated women workers were still
to be found in the tailoring trade, and _Punch_ did well in 1896 to
retell in his columns the story of the tailoress, Mary Ould of Peckham,
as unfolded before the Lambeth County Court. She had to buy her own
materials and pay her fare for fetching and carrying work; she toiled
till 10 p.m. from Saturday till Thursday and, at 3/4d. per coat, earned
3s. The pillorying of these abuses did credit to _Punch's_ humanity,
but as they were nearly always chosen from unorganized trades, they
became increasingly difficult to reconcile with his increasing
hostility to trade union organization, and his distrust of legislation
expressly designed to satisfy the demands of Labour. Philanthropic
efforts to relieve the squalor of the home life of the poor were
another matter. To the appeals of the Children's Country Holiday Fund
_Punch_ always lent a ready ear, and when Canon Barnett arranged an
exhibition of Watts's pictures in Whitechapel, _Punch_ vigorously
applauded the scheme. Pictures were as good as sermons, and better than
many:--
Where Whitechapel's darkness the weary eyes of the dreary worker dims,
It may be found that Watts's pictures do better than Watts's hymns.
[Sidenote: _The Children's Champion_]
[Illustration: ART IN WHITECHAPEL
"Well, that's what I calls a himpossible persition to get yerself
into!"]
At the same time the Philistine attitude of the East End matron is not
overlooked in Phil May's picture. Much depended on the spirit in which
this campaign of enlightenment was conducted, and _Punch_ continued to
rebuke and satirize the lack of sympathy and comprehension shown by the
fashionable "slummer." He had "no use" for people like "Mrs. Slumley
Smirk," the District Visitor, who asked to be warned if any illness was
about, as then she wouldn't wish to come near; and he was even more
satirical at the expense of Socialism as conceived by certain members
of the aristocracy--_vide_ the imaginary interview with "Lady Yorick"
in 1905--who sought to have it both ways, and, as I notice elsewhere,
represented a new and inverted type of snobbery.
For the scandal of the insurance of poor children's lives he held not
the parents, but the "Bogus Insurance sneak," mainly responsible. He
is at least half in sympathy with the soliloquy in St. James's Park of
the Socialist loafer who deprecates the amount of food wasted on the
ducks and swans. He applauds the revival of Folk Dancing in 1903; in
1905 there is a long and charming sketch of an old Cambridge bedmaker
who had recently died at an advanced age; and in the following year
_Punch_ published a delightful imaginary description of a socialistic
experiment, by which poor children were sent on visits to "upper-class"
families, and treated as guests and equals, to the mutual profit of
both classes. The scheme is suggested as an improvement on bazaars
and similar activities. On the other hand, _Punch_ indulges in ironic
comment on the result of well-meant efforts to teach poor children to
"think imperially"--a subject on which he spoke with more than one
voice. In an Empire Day Essay a London school-child wrote in 1908:--
"There are a lot of Empires like Chinese Empire, Hackney Empire,
Stratford Empire, and Russian Empire. Hackney Empire is different to
ours because they sing there, and ours is places."
[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF WINDSOR CASTLE
by the Boy Scouts.]
[Sidenote: _The Boy Scout Movement_]
The best-inspired and most fruitful of all movements for the uplifting
of the children of the people which belongs to this period was that
of the Boy Scouts. It was entirely independent of State or official
encouragement, and sprang from the ingenious brain of one man, General
Sir Robert Baden-Powell, and _Punch_, as an Individualist, was not
inclined to think worse of it on that account. As a matter of fact, he
greeted the Boy Scouts with the utmost cordiality from the very outset.
In 1909 his cartoon on "Our Youngest Line of Defence" shows the Boy
Scout reassuring Mrs. Britannia: "Fear not, Grandma; no danger can
befall you now. Remember _I_ am with you." Later on in 1911 came the
delightful cartoon of the Boy Scouts capturing Windsor Castle, and, on
the very eve of the war, in _Punch's_ Holiday Pages we encounter the
late Mr. F. H. Townsend's admirable picture of our "dear old friend the
foreign spy (cunningly disguised as a golfer) visiting our youngest
suburb on a Saturday afternoon in quest of further evidence of our
lethargy, general decadence and falling birth-rate." As a result of
observing the activity and numbers of the Boy Scouts, he gets a serious
shock, and at once telegraphs to his Commander-in-Chief "urging that
the conquest of the British Isles be undertaken before the present
generation is many years older." This oblique and imaginative tribute
was happily conceived and well deserved. The spirit of the Boy Scout
movement was at least a contributory factor in helping us to win the
War. What was even more important was the conversion of a great many
Pacificists from their mistrust of the alleged "militarism" of the
movement, and their recognition of its essential value as an instrument
in fostering self-respect, truthfulness, altruistic kindliness and
cleanliness of mind and body.
[Illustration: OUR DEAR OLD FRIEND THE FOREIGN SPY]
[Sidenote: _Strikes and Unemployment_]
This record--and it is by no means exhaustive--of _Punch's_
humanitarian activities must not blind us to the fact that throughout
these years the principal object of his sympathy and compassion was
not the working man but the middle-class tax-and rate-payer. In 1893
_Punch_ depicts him bound to a post and in danger of being drowned by
the rising tide of rates--L.C.C., Asylums, Libraries, Baths, Vestries.
_Punch_, as we have seen, did not acquit the coal owners and coal
merchants of rapacity, but he was not any more sympathetic to the
miners--witness the following dialogue printed in the same year:--
THE STRIKER'S VADE MECUM
_Question._ You think it is a good thing to strike?
_Answer._ Yes, when there is no other remedy.
_Q._ Is there ever any other remedy?
_A._ Never. At least, so say the secretaries.
_Q._ Then you stand by the opinions of the officials?
_A._ Why, of course; because they are paid to give them.
_Q._ But have not the employers any interests?
_A._ Lots, but they are not worthy the working man's consideration.
_Q._ But are not their interests yours?
_A._ Yes, and that is the way we guard over them.
_Q._ But surely it is the case of cutting off the nose to spite the
mouth?
_A._ And why not, if the mouth is too well fed.
_Q._ But are not arguments better than bludgeons?
_A._ No. And bludgeons are less effective than revolvers.
_Q._ But may not the use of revolvers produce the military?
_A._ Yes, but they can do nothing without a magistrate reading the
Riot Act.
_Q._ But, the Riot Act read, does not the work become serious?
_A._ Probably. But at any rate the work is lawful, because
unremunerative.
_Q._ But how are the wives and children of strikers to live if their
husbands and fathers earn no wages?
_A._ On strike money.
_Q._ But does all the strike money go to the maintenance of the hearth
and home?
_A._ Of course not, for a good share of it is wanted for the
baccy-shop and the public-house.
_Q._ But if strikes continue will not trade suffer?
_A._ Very likely, but trade represents the masters.
_Q._ And if trade is driven away from the country, will it come back?
_A._ Most likely not, but that is a matter for the future.
_Q._ But is not the future of equal importance to the present?
_A._ Not at all, for a day's thought is quite enough for a day's work.
_Q._ Then a strike represents either nothing or idleness?
_A._ Yes, bludgeons or beer.
_Q._ And what is the value of reason?
_A._ Why, something less than smoke.
Simultaneously _Punch_ published a cartoon (rather prematurely) in
which Mars, expressing his readiness to arbitrate, appeals to Vulcan to
do the same. Lord Rosebery's successful intervention as a mediator in
the coal strike in December, 1893, is handsomely acknowledged in the
cartoon in which he figures as the "G.O.M.'s handy boy." Lord Rosebery
was still at the height of his personal popularity; it was not until
1905 that _Punch_ described him as "unemployable." Unemployment had
reached formidable dimensions, and then, as now, proved serviceable
material to the political agitator. Mr. Asquith, as Home Secretary,
had allowed political meetings in Trafalgar Square "so long as the
proceedings were orderly," and _Punch_ represented the disappointment
of the extremists at having the ground cut from under their feet by
this condition. A year later _Punch_ depicted the Trafalgar Square of
the future, with anarchy rampant in every corner, and early in 1894
the verses "The Devil's Latest Walk (after Coleridge and Southey),"
fiercely attacking Socialist agitators as animated by sheer malice, are
accompanied by a picture of a fiendish figure with horns and tail.
[Illustration: THE UNEMPLOYABLE
(Dedicated to Lord R-s-b-ry)]
[Sidenote: _Gambling and Improvidence_]
It was about this time that, as we read in the _Annual Register_, "a
large body of the unemployed attended service at St. Paul's Cathedral
in response to an invitation from Canon Scott Holland, whose sermon
was frequently interrupted by the applause of those present." _Punch_,
in his then mood, would have probably explained this episode on the
principle of "the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be." _Punch_
was no admirer of the art of Mr. George Moore, but he had paid him
reluctant homage as a moralist in 1894, under the head of "All the
Winners":--
Boycotted or not boycotted, if _Esther Waters_ calls general and
effectual attention to the growth of gambling, which is the real
"curse of the country" in these days, it will do more good than all
the _Dodos_ and _Marcellas_ and _Barabbases_ and _Heavenly Twins_ in
all the Libraries in the land.
It was in the same spirit that a few years later _Punch_ applauded
the idea of establishing a Bureau of Common-sense to combat the
extravagance and improvidence of the working classes. The suggestion
was made by Judge Emden, the well-known County Court Judge, in dealing
with the case of a man who, on wages of from 25s. to 30s. a week,
committed himself to a twenty-five-guinea piano on the hire-purchase
system.
"Agricultural Depression" bulks largely in _Punch's_ pages in the
'nineties, but it is the farmer, not the farm labourer, who is singled
out for commiseration. In 1893 he is shown as Buridan's Ass between two
piles of sapless chaff--Tory and Liberal--overburdened by the triple
load of Rents, Rates and Foreign Competition:--
What choice between the chaff of arid Rad
And that of equally dry-and-dusty Tory?
Chaplin would feed you on preposterous fad,
And Gardner[4] on--postponement! The old story!
While the grass grows the horse may starve. Poor ass!
Party would bring you to a similar pass!
[Footnote 4: Mr. Herbert Gardner, President of the Board of
Agriculture, afterwards Lord Burghclere.]
In the summer of 1894 the verses "A Good Time Coming" foreshadow the
end of the agricultural depression, but a few weeks later the farmer
was bitterly disappointed. His crops had been plentiful, but the plenty
had brought down the price of wheat in some cases to 16s. and 19s. a
quarter. In short, there had been a golden harvest, but he couldn't
get gold for it. Let it be noted, in parenthesis, that if _Punch_
espoused the cause of the farmer, he was not wholly wedded to the
old rural _régime_ of the Squire and the Parson. In 1894 there is a
humorously ironic lament by a lover of the "Good Old Times" in the form
of a new version of "The Village Blacksmith," suggested by the actual
return of a blacksmith to one of the new parish councils at the head
of the poll. When the Conservatives came back to power in 1895, Lord
Salisbury, in a new fable of Hercules and the Farmer, is represented
as adroitly ascribing agricultural depression to Providence, and
exculpating the Government which had done its best; but the farmer is
unconvinced by this pious explanation. The remedy which the Government
sought to apply in the Agricultural Land Rating Bill of 1896 failed
to satisfy _Punch_. Mr. Chaplin is seen, in an adaptation of Æsop,
shifting the burden of rural rates from the horse (country) to the
ass (town). But the latter was _Punch's_ special _protégé_, and the
verses in May express accurately enough the cry of the poor townsman,
the rate-crushed cockney, protesting against Mr. Chaplin's remedy when
the income-tax was already 8d. in the pound! The income-tax payer this
time is the patient ass, hoping that some at least of the surplus of
six millions may be devoted to the relief of his gigantic burden.
To return to Agriculture, a sidelight is thrown on the shortage of
farm hands in 1901, in the picture of an elderly farmer rebuking a
very small boy for slacking, only to be met by the retort "Chaps is
scarce." The parallel to the Great War is obvious, but one would hardly
have thought that the Boer war was on a large enough scale to affect
the labour market in this way. In 1903 voluntary labour bureaus were
started, but the results were disappointing, and _Punch_ quotes an
account of an experiment in Wiltshire. Fifteen men had been sent down
from London; two returned in three days "because it rained"; and twelve
more were back in a fortnight. Our increasing reliance on imported food
had already prompted _Punch_ to indulge in a forecast of the Stores
of the Future, at which Tierra-del-Fuego Devonshire cream and similar
products are offered for sale because it had become impossible to get
any home-grown produce. The exodus from the land to the cities was
already in full swing, and we find _Punch_ as early as 1896 commending
a clergyman who had started dancing classes in his village near Stroud
as a counter-attraction to the lure of the towns. In this context it
is worthy of note that in 1900 _Punch_ suggested that, as a result of
socialistic legislation in Australia and elsewhere, and the growing
struggle for the good things of life, no one was willing "to do the
washing up." Yet prices and taxes were low enough to excite the envy of
the harassed post-war householder. Eggs were advertised at 16 for 1s.,
but even this did not satisfy Phil May's broken-down tragedian in 1900,
who exclaims as he reads the announcement in a shop-window: "Cheap!
Ha! Ha! Why, in my time they _threw_ them at us."
[Sidenote: _Town v. Country_]
[Illustration: JOE THE VENTRILOQUIST
PROFESSOR CH-MB-RL-N: "You see, ladies and gentlemen, he talks
just as well even when I go right away!"]
If all was not well with those who lived on or by the land, the town
exodus of week-enders and the demand for small country residences had
already created a cult of "rural felicity," the artificiality of which
did not escape _Punch_ when he satirized in 1904 the platitudinous
appreciation of Nature and country life distilled in the halfpenny
Press. At the same time the drastic legislation dealing with the
land problem introduced by the Liberals on their return to power in
1906 found little or no sympathy from _Punch_. The cross-currents
revealed in the Unionist Party by the great Tariff Reform controversy,
the resignation of Mr. Chamberlain, the secession of the Free Trade
Ministers, and the inability of the plain person to cope with the
transcendental fiscal dialectics of Mr. Balfour, had made it difficult
for _Punch_, born and bred in the principles of Free Trade, to accord
a whole-hearted support to the Unionist administration in its later
years. There was, however, no perplexity in his attitude towards
the land policy of their successors. At all their stages _Punch_
was hostile to the new "Lloyd Georgics." We may specially single
out the cartoon in August, 1910, presenting a "study of a free-born
Briton who, within the period usually allotted to his holidays,
is required under threat of a penalty of £50 to answer a mass of
obscure conundrums relating to land values, to facilitate his future
taxation." The miseries of this inquisitorial process are further
developed in an imaginary extract from a specimen return showing how
some of the questions in the historic "Form IV" were to be answered.
The sequel to this laborious and costly preliminary investigation
falls outside the scope of this volume. Nor is it necessary to dwell
at length on the movement, doubtless animated by a noble sympathy
with the rural population, initiated by the _Daily Mail_ in 1911 on
behalf of the revival of windmills and standard bread. The new-found
interest in the yokel is satirized in the song of the "Merry Hind"
(after Masefield's _Daffodil Fields_), and the cartoon "The Return
of the Golden Age" in February, 1913, where Mr. Lloyd George is seen
emptying a cornucopia of "rare and refreshing fruit" into the lap of
the ecstatic farm labourer. Hodge was at last fairly in the limelight,
for both parties had their land policy, and the opening of Mr. Lloyd
George's Land Campaign in October is symbolized by a picture of him as
an irresponsible music-hall comedian with "Songs Without Wurzels. No.
1, Land of Hope (as arranged by the Cabinet)" in his hand. Mr. Asquith
is seen as his accompanist, waiting for the "patter" to finish, and
observing, "This is the part that makes me nervous." But the _Pall Mall
Gazette_, then edited by the great Mr. Garvin, declared in December
that "whatever can be done to improve the lot of the agriculturist will
have the Opposition's cordial support," and, on the strength of this
assurance, the Premier's anxiety, in _Punch's_ view, was allayed. When
Scout George reports to his chief "the enemy is on our side, sir,"
Scoutmaster Asquith replies, "Then let the battle begin."
[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE GOLDEN AGE
(Vide The Lloyd-Georgics--passim)]
[Sidenote: _Work, Wages, Pensions, and Doles_]
Farmers and farm labourers were regarded in _Punch's_ survey as
not much more than pawns in the game of party politics. The claims
of organized labour in the other great industries and the general
tendency of legislation in their interests found him a more vigilant
and a more hostile critic. Even so mild a measure as the Early Closing
Bill of 1896--with the principle of which he had been in agreement
in earlier years--excited his misgivings and prompted a forecast
of increasingly intimate interference with the private life of
householders: the outline of his "Household Regulations Act" contains
provisions for hours of rising, cleaning, meals, bills and rent. It
is a burlesque, but none the less indicates resentment of patriarchal
State interference. Yet _Punch's_ general individualism admitted of
exceptions. He noted the failure of the Voluntary Labour Bureau system,
and was frivolously critical of the amateur attempt of a vicar to start
Trust Houses to supersede Public Houses--a movement which later on came
to stay and to achieve solid results. Here, however, allowance must
be made for _Punch's_ inveterate distrust of temperance agitators.
State interference on behalf of minorities did not always meet with
_Punch's_ approval, and in 1898 we find him vehemently protesting
against the recognition of "Conscientious Objectors" to vaccination. In
a striking picture headed "The Triumph of De-Jenner-ation" he shows
a grisly skeleton waving as his banner the Vaccination Bill, which
_Punch_ calls "the Bill for the encouragement of Small Pox." But the
burden of his criticisms of Labour is concerned with the artificial
restriction of output, the conversion of the trade unions from an
industrial to a political organization, and the increasing tendency of
State intervention to encourage a reluctance either to work or save.
The picture of Hyde Park on "Labour Day" in 1898 with the grass strewn
with recumbent sleeping figures is, if I read it aright, designed less
in compassion for the unemployed than as a satire on the unemployable.
Wages were high in the bricklaying trade, but a shortage of labour
was complained of; as for the skill required, a surveyor had written
to the _Daily Telegraph_ stating that "any ordinary man could learn
bricklaying in a fortnight," and _Punch_ ironically foreshadows the
invasion of the trade by underpaid clerks, barristers, etc. Ruskin
College--opened at Oxford in 1899--is described as "a College for
Labour Leaders" by _Punch_, who rather unnecessarily prophesied that
it might become the scene of "strikes"; but the friction which arose
between those who conceived that the function of the college was purely
educational, and those who wished to make it a school of political
thought, went far to justify _Punch's_ misgivings. The plan of Old
Age Pensions had long been in the air. The committee which reported
in 1892 showed considerable divergence of opinion. Mr. Chamberlain,
the chairman, condemned Mr. Charles Booth's proposal of the general
endowment of old age as a gigantic system of outdoor relief for every
one, good and bad, thrifty and unthrifty. The majority of the Royal
Commission of 1893 were adverse to State pensions. The Rothschild
Committee in 1896 found themselves unable to devise any satisfactory
proposal. The Select Committee over which Mr. Chaplin presided put
forward a scheme substantially on Mr. Charles Booth's lines, but
in view of the cost and the hostility of the Government the matter
rested till the passing of the Act by the Liberals in 1908. _Punch_,
it may be noted, was no enthusiast for the scheme formulated by the
Chaplin Committee; his cartoon of "Old Gaffer" and "Little Chappelin"
(modelled on Southey's ballad) is undoubtedly hostile, and the
accompanying verses end up on a cynical note when the "Old Gaffer" asks
"Little Chappelin" what is the bag he is carrying, and is told:
"Only another dole," said he;
"It _is_ a famous Ministry."
The Trade Union Congress at Plymouth in the same year censured Lord
Mount Edgcumbe because, in throwing open his grounds to them, he
had reserved the privacy of his lawn for a garden party. _Punch_
accordingly indulged in some sarcastic verses, supposed to be written
by a Trade Unionist, and ironically applauding the action of Mr. Ben
Tillett, who had distinguished himself by his attack on Lord Mount
Edgcumbe. This was fair game enough, though to-day it would probably
have been passed over in silence. _Punch_ no doubt was thinking of the
saying that an Englishman's house is his castle; and hardly anticipated
the time when an Englishman's or an English nobleman's castle
would cease to be his home. To-day we read with an amused surprise
_Punch's_ comment in 1900 on the introduction of an eight-hours'
day for domestics in Australia, and his forecast of a similar state
of affairs in England under a new Patriarchal Statute. Nor is there
anything wildly extravagant in his ironical anticipation of the cook
of the future demanding £100 wages, though unable to guarantee more in
return than "chop one day and steak the next." The higher education of
servants, according to _Punch_, was tending to produce a type which
knew everything except the things which really mattered. He tells us in
1902 of a lady who was delighted to get a cook who could develop her
photographs, and gives us, in the same year, an excellent study (after
Gilbert) of the "Up-to-date Cook-General":--
I am the very pattern of an up-to-date cook-general,
I've information vegetable, animal and mineral;
I've passed the seventh standard, and I vary the monotony
Of flirting with the butcher's boy by writing books on botany.
I know the chemistry of zinc, tin, potash and ammonium;
I practise on the fiddle, flute, piano and harmonium;
I understand minutely the formation of an icicle,
And in the season round the Park I like to ride my bicycle.
I've studied Herbert Spencer and I've views on sociology,
And as a mere _parergon_ I have taken up conchology--
In short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral,
I am the very model of an up-to-date cook-general.
In fact, when I have learnt to tell a turnip from an artichoke,
Or grill a steak that will not make my mistress's dinner-party choke;
When I can cook a mutton chop or any plain comestible
In such a way that it becomes not wholly indigestible;
When I can wash a cup without inevitably breaking it,
Or make a bed where folk can sleep at ease without remaking it;
In short, when I've an inkling of economy domestical,
You'll say, "Of all cook-generals this girl the very best I call."
For my culinary ignorance and all-round imbecility
Is only to be equalled by my housewifely futility--
But still, in learning vegetable, animal and mineral,
I am the very pattern of an up-to-date cook-general.
[Sidenote: _The Aristocrats of Labour_]
The plethora of processions in 1901 moved _Punch_ to make various
suggestions for the better conduct of such spectacles, mostly in the
shape of fantastic and satirical concessions to the greatest happiness
of the greatest number of sightseers. Warnings against the _panem
et circenses_ habit were legitimate enough, but _Punch_ took a more
aggressive line in his attack on the miners in 1901:--
A BLACK LOOK-OUT
(A paper picked up near the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
Pity the sorrows of a poor collier, who, if a shilling export duty is
imposed upon coal, will have (possibly) to see--
1. His wife giving up her music and riding lessons.
2. His children not able to go to the seaside for a month or two.
3. His favourite licensed victualler unable to supply him with that
extra quart he enjoys so much after he has drunk the others.
4. His dogs unable to compete for prizes because their upkeep will be
too expensive.
5. His tailor sending in his account and respectfully requesting
immediate payment.
6. His wine merchant writing to ask him why he has given up ordering
champagne.
7. Worst (and, fortunately, most improbable) of all, himself having to
work four days a week instead of three.
In earlier years _Punch_ would have given chapter and verse for such
charges; the later method, though it makes easier reading, carries
less weight. _Punch_ did not, however, wholly abandon the practice of
"documenting" his criticism, and he turned it to excellent account in
a discussion of the much-abused German clerk in 1898, when he quoted
the following passage from the official Consular Report from Stettin,
issued by the Foreign Office:--
Much of the commercial knowledge of Germany has been supplied by young
Germans who have been employed as clerks in Great Britain, mostly
as foreign correspondents. British clerks cannot be used as foreign
correspondents, because not one in a thousand can correspond correctly
in any foreign language.
For the effective German competition which threatened to oust British
trade from the markets of the world, _Punch_ did not hold any one class
responsible. The fault was our national complacency, symbolized in 1901
by a lethargic John Bull priding himself on the superior excellence of
his goods, but declining to take the trouble to make foreign customers
understand it. The contrast between the German and the Briton in regard
to practical business capacity is brought out in the papers headed,
"Pashley's Opinions." "Efficiency" was the motto of the hour, yet
_Punch_ found it hard to reconcile the cry with the "Catchwords for
the Million," especially the "Equal Rights of Man" as interpreted by
trade union rules, especially those affecting bricklaying, which in his
view sterilized competition and ambition. Another side of the subject
is dealt with in the series of papers entitled, "How to get on," one
of which satirizes the almost hysterical worship of "efficiency"
by those who in the same breath declared that we were the greatest
race on earth and also the greatest slackers, but confined their own
energies to mere talk. The underlying principles, however, which
govern _Punch's_ contributions to the "Efficiency" controversy could
not be better summed up than in the dictum of Mr. J. M. Beck,[5] the
Solicitor-General of the United States: "The great evil of the world
to-day is the aversion to work."
[Footnote 5: "The Revolt against Authority." _Fortnightly Review_,
November, 1921.]
[Sidenote: _Sport and Crime_]
[Illustration: MR. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW AND THE PEOPLE
"Wot d'y' fink o' this 'ere G. B. S.?"
"Never tried it! I smokes V.B.D."]
What troubled _Punch_, to borrow an epigram from another American
anonymous writer, was "not so much the unemployment of the idle as
the idleness of the employed." He is increasingly concerned with the
popular pre-occupation with sport and criminal celebrities, combined
with a corresponding apathy on important questions. Foreign politics
were only brought home to the masses when they lent themselves to
sensational or spectacular treatment, and, in 1903, _Punch_ gibbets an
announcement in the _Scotsman_: "Scenes resulting from the Macedonian
Atrocities displayed by the Modern Marvel Cinematograph, at 3 and 8
(see Amusement Column)." The sentimental interest in criminals is
bluntly rebuked as a perversion of the philanthropic maxim that "to
know all is to forgive all"; the blame for this was attributed to the
journals which catered for the million, but the avidity with which
this pabulum was devoured, and the absence of any protest from those
affected, was a disquieting symptom; and _Punch_ was within his rights
in making game of the _Clarion_ when it scented class distinction in
the abortive movement to introduce knee-breeches for evening wear.
[Sidenote: _Liberals and Labour_]
In the Unionist defeat at the election of 1906, _Punch_ recognized not
merely the return to power of the Liberals, but the coming of the "New
Demos," the growing importance of the Labour Party, and the increasing
impetus lent to its demands. His "farewell to the beaten side" is
animated by no enthusiasm for the victors:--
You leave a record which shall bear the light
When History delves for Truth in after days,
Not as the sudden mob condemns at sight,
Or stints its grudging praise.
Meanwhile the heart of gratitude is cold;
A young new Demos, born of yester-eve,
Big-mouthed and blustering, overbears the old,
Waiting for no man's leave.
Every inhuman name that he can spell
He prints in red for all to know you by,
Citing his gods to prove he would not tell,
Nor yet believe, a lie.
He paints your lurid portraits on the polls:--
"Drivers of slaves that oust the white man's brood."
"Bigots that bind in chains our children's souls!"
"Filchers of poor folk's food!"
Had you been Czars to drain the people's blood,
Or sought to earn a country's dying curse,
Dragging her remnant honour through the mud,
He could have done no worse.
His hooligans are out with stones and dirt;
And in the darkness you must hide your head,
Nor look for Chivalry to salve the hurt,
For Demos reigns instead.
Not much it helps to know that those, ere long,
Who lent him aid and did a mutual deal,
Will find their henchman, grown a shade too strong,
Stamping them under heel.
Little it serves that they, your old-time foes,
Who found him useful for their present ends,
Must seek you soon and plaintively propose--
"Please save us from our friends!"
But let this solace keep your hearts resigned--
That, till a second lustre's course is through,
The noblest heritage you leave behind
Demos can scarce undo.
The prophecy that the Liberals would invoke the assistance of the
Unionists to "save them from their friends" was not fulfilled; the
course of legislation up to the war indicated in the main a desire
to consult the demands of Labour rather than to break away from the
alliance. The summary of reasons "Why I lost" from defeated candidates
furnishes a useful commentary on the verses quoted above. They include
Chinese Labour, the Big Loaf cry, the Education Bill of 1902, the Trade
Disputes Bill, Overbridge Trams, the Japanese Alliance and the _Entente
Cordiale_. The messages were not actually received by _Punch_, but they
are not an unfair interpretation of the issues which weighed with the
bulk of the electorate. A "spirited foreign policy" was out of favour,
and a cold fit had succeeded to the fervour of the "Khaki" election.
The Government lost no time in setting to work to redeem their pledge
about Trade Disputes. Early in April, C.-B. figures in the cartoon
"Hard to please" as a farmer soliloquizing over his dog (Labour),
"He's had two platefuls of biscuits and isn't satisfied. Looks as if
he wanted raw meat." The plates, labelled Workmen's Compensation and
Merchant Shipping Bill, are both empty. The third, the Trade Disputes
Bill, is full of biscuits as yet untouched. When the Attorney-General,
Sir J. Lawson Walton, introduced that measure, _Punch_, in his "Essence
of Parliament," speaks of it as a "ticklish Bill" conceding important
demands in regard to picketing and conspiracy, but "as to the immunity
of Trade Union funds from amercement consequent on civil actions,
the Bill does not go the full lengths of the demands of Labour." The
attitude of the Labour Party, who threatened to bring in their own
Bill and to insist on its substitution for the Government measure,
is symbolized in the cartoon showing Labour offering _his_ scales
to Justice in preference to her own, in which Capital and Labour
are equally balanced, with the comment, "I think you'll find _this_
pair works better--for me." The climbing down of the Government in
the autumn session is illustrated in a further cartoon representing
Labour as the predominant partner. The Liberal Party is seen on foot
being pushed on by a donkey (Labour) drawing a cart in which the Trade
Disputes Bill is sitting. "Yes," says the old lady, "I was wrong to
threaten him with a whip. The dear creature must be led, not driven.
Still--this isn't quite the way I meant to come." Comment in _Punch's_
"Essence of Parliament" on the progress of the Bill is curiously
meagre, but there is one illuminating paragraph on the Report Stage:
"The Attorney-General explained that when at the earlier stage he
argued against the immunity of Trade Unions from action at law, he did
not mean to debar himself from subsequently insisting upon the justice
of such immunity." The momentous and far-reaching consequences of a
measure which created a privileged class and set them above the law
were only dimly apprehended in _Punch_, who confined himself in his
further comments to the lack of spirit shown by the Opposition in the
Lords. Thus in "The Better Part of Valour" we see the Trade Disputes
Bill standing over the prostrate figure of the Education Bill, about to
batter its way into the Lords, while Lord Lansdowne remarks: "_I_ bar
your way? My dear fellow! Why, you've got a mandate." "Well, so had my
friend here," rejoins the T.D.B., on which Lord Lansdowne replies: "Ah!
but not such a big one!" The same idea is developed in the Epilogue,
where the Lords are charged by the representative of "The People's
Will" with having attacked and brutally ill-treated the Education Bill,
while they were too cowardly to tackle the Trade Disputes Bill.
[Sidenote: _The Revolt of the Middle Classes_]
The _Daily Mail_, which had anticipated a Unionist victory at the
polls, now espoused the cause of the "Middle-Class Serf," taxed
and rated and bled beyond endurance "in the interests of the most
pampered section of the community the labouring man," and rumours
of the formation of a new political body, with a view to obtaining
justice and recognition, impelled _Punch_ to indulge in a forecast,
half sympathetic, half sceptical, of "The Turning of the Middle-Class
Worm":--
England, be warned! The time for patience passes;
You are more near the eve
Of a revolt among the Middle Classes
Than you perhaps believe;
Worn to a thread by Labour's licensed plunder
Of what poor desultory pay they earn,
Can anybody reasonably wonder
These worms should turn?
In 1897 _Punch_ had resented Government interference with the
management of workhouses, and fell foul of the Local Government Board
when a Board of Guardians in Lincolnshire were asked to make a return
of the number of currants put into the children's puddings. Ten years
later the ground of this complaint had shifted; and the administrative
scandals which _Punch_ assails in 1907 are ascribed to the extravagance
of Labour Guardians. Poplar is described as "the Pauper's Paradise";
and the new Bumbledom is shown, in a perversion of the scene from
"Oliver Twist," "asking for more," while the miserable ratepayer ladles
out champagne-cup for its refreshment. The "latest excursion" is "A day
in Profuse Poplar," the lair of the "Gorgeous Guardians."
The Workmen's Compensation Act is treated as a set-off to the
Prevention of Corruption Act, aimed at the abuse of secret commissions,
and a butler is shown reassuring a cook and advising her how to get her
own back by a carefully contrived accident. The same spirit is revealed
in the picture of the workman whose innocence has been outraged by
someone who said he had seen him hurry: "I _never_ 'urry."
To this year belongs the farcical suggestion of a Society to Protect
Employers, for the special benefit of persons who were afraid of their
servants and had not the courage to dismiss them.
_Punch_ was nearer the mark in his illustrations of the popular
prejudice against the Army. A football enthusiast at a match
commiserates "silly people who mess about with a rifle on Saturday
afternoons"; and a "Spartan mother" standing at a barrack gate,
uplifts her voice in thankfulness that her Bill "isn't wasting his
time drilling," while Bill is shown in an inset engrossed in the
contemplation of a pot of beer.
[Illustration: HECKLING THOMAS: "D'yer mean ter say if yer 'ad
two 'osses yer'd give me one?"
SOCIALIST: "Cert'nly."
H. T.: "And if yer 'ad two cows, yer'd give me one?"
S.: "'Course I would!"
H. T.: "An' if yer 'ad two pigs?"
S.: "Wot yer talkin' about? I've _got_ two pigs!"]
_Punch_ distrusted Socialism because, in his view, it led in practice
to vicarious generosity. The Socialist would give half of everything,
so long as he didn't possess it himself. Yet in apportioning the
blame for the railway trouble in 1907, _Punch_ did not spare Capital.
Railway directors and trade unions were in his cartoon shown as equally
animated by a disregard for the interests of the public. Incidentally
we may note that the volunteer service rendered by the general public
in 1919 is anticipated in a humorous sketch of the experiences of an
amateur porter. _Punch_, even where he felt strongly, was alive to the
extravagances of the extremists on his own side, witness the verses
in 1908 which purport to express the perplexity of "an open-minded
beggar":--
[Sidenote: "_The Open-minded Beggar_"]
Reader, tell me, if you know,
What, on earth, is Socialism.
Is it--men have told me so--
Some preposterous abysm,
Into which we all may drop--
With the criminals on top?
Is the vehement _Express_
Justified in all it mentions;
And are Wells and G. B. S.
Worse than _Sikes_ in their intentions?
Do those Fabian beasts of prey
Wish to take my wife away?
Or--observe that I am quite
Open-minded, gentle reader--
Are they sometimes nearly right
In the shocking _Labour Leader_?
Will the coming Commune be
Paradise for you and me?
Do you think it can be true
That the death of competition
Guarantees for me and you
Sinless Edens--new edition?
Or was Stuart Mill correct--
Will there be some grave defect?
Shall we all be servile wrecks
With the brand of Marx imprinted
On our miserable necks,
As _The Referee_ has hinted?
Or--see _Justice_--shall we share
Perfect freedom with the air?
Will that entity, the State
Of Collectivist Utopia,
Actually operate
Something like a cornucopia?
Or will Hardie's fatted friends
Leave me only odds and ends?
In this monster maze of doubt
I am groping like a blind man.
Shall I boldly blossom out
As a follower of Hyndman?
Or continue to exist
As an Individualist?
So, dear reader, will you, please,
Tell a poor, distracted Briton
Whom, in troubled times like these,
He should put his little bit on?
And, philosopher and guide,
_Do_ pick out the winning side!
_Punch's_ comment on the Eight Hours Bill is influenced by the
objections of those who opposed it on the ground that it would affect
the cost of all the necessaries of life. King Coal observes, "This
means that I shall have to reduce my output," and Commerce rejoins,
"Then I shall have to reduce mine, too," and both agree in doubting
whether the Government had ever thought of this inevitable result.
Old Age Pensions are shown in 1908 as having already become a millstone
round the neck of the Government; and in that form Mr. Asquith is seen
tying them to the person of Mr. Lloyd George as a presentation to be
worn by all Chancellors of the Exchequer in perpetuity. "Several of our
contemporaries," _Punch_ observes, "are devoting their columns to an
explanation of the best way to obtain an Old Age Pension. _Mr. Punch's_
advice is: _Don't save_."
[Illustration: THE SLUMP IN MANNERS
MR. ASQUITH: "_He_ wouldn't have stood this kind of thing. I
wonder whether I ought."]
On the much-vexed question of Chinese Labour, _Punch_ sided
against its critics, and his cartoons in 1906 represent Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman forcing unwelcome freedom on the Chinese coolie.
Ignorance of Imperial questions on the part of the Labour Party is
a frequent theme of comment. In the same year we find an article
describing an imaginary tour in the Colonies by Mr. Keir Hardie and
Mr. Philip Snowden. Mr. Keir Hardie spent two months in India in
1907, and the reports of his speeches, which he declared to be gross
exaggerations and fabrications, led to vehement protests in the British
Press. His biographer states that "for a full fortnight Keir Hardie
was the most violently detested man throughout the English-speaking
world. Even _Punch_ joined in the vituperation with a cartoon by Linley
Sambourne, which showed Britannia gripping the agitator by the scruff
of the neck and apostrophizing him: 'Here, you'd better come home.
We know all about you there, and you'll do less harm.'" _Punch's_
adverse comments were not merely pictorial, and though Mr. Keir Hardie
laid himself open to criticism by his angularity, his vanity and such
remarks as "India to-day is governed by a huge military oligarchy," his
courage and sincerity passed unrecognized.
Strikes and trade depression furnish themes for comment in 1908. In one
cartoon Trade is shown as a lean and ill-favoured goose that has lost
confidence in herself; in another, an engineer going back to work after
seven months' stoppage, meets a cotton-spinning girl just coming out,
and is credited with the admission that his action has done no good to
himself or anyone else.
In 1909-1910 the conflict between Lords and Commons over the Budget
proposals overshadowed all other home issues. It even became a subject
of debate at preparatory schools, and _Punch_ quotes a _bonâ fide_
letter from a boy of nine: "We had two debates yesterday about the
Budget being rejected. I was against the Budget, but the ones who were
for it won, because just about half the ones who were against it had to
go away for their prayers." Mr. Lloyd George was now the champion and
hero of the democracy, for this was the year of the famous Limehouse
speech and its sequel at Newcastle, where he referred to the House of
Lords as "500 ordinary men, chosen accidentally from the unemployed."
Dukes were handled almost as roughly as by _Punch_ in the 'forties,
and "robber-barons" were held up to obloquy. _Punch_ resented this
wholesale vituperation, and indulged in some effective reprisals in his
criticism of trade union indiscipline, notably the growing tendency
towards unofficial and lightning strikes. Thus, in 1910, he published
a cartoon showing a trade union official lying prostrate in the road,
overthrown and left behind by a crowd marching under a banner inscribed
"Down with Authority." The comments on the payment of Members in the
same year imply that trade unions were hostile to a change which
impaired their control. The State might pay M.P.s, but the trade
unions must call the tune. Nor was _Punch_ favourably impressed by the
Government's scheme of Insurance against Unemployment, which, in his
forecast, would only encourage the existing reluctance to work.
[Illustration: CONSTITUENT (referring to M.P. speaking in
market-place): "It's the likes of hus that 'as to pay him £400 a
year. It makes me that wild to think as we could 'ave two first-class
'arf-backs for the same money."]
[Sidenote: _Claims for "Recognition"_]
Throughout 1911 and 1912 the claims of the new Trade Unionism met
with little sympathy. "Look here, my friend," says John Bull of the
"New Volunteer Police" to a Trade Union leader: "I've been hearing a
good deal of talk of 'recognition.' Well, I represent the public, and
it's about time _my_ interests were 'recognized.'" A month later, in
October, 1911, an "imported agitator" is shown talking to his comrade
as they watch the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Sydney Buxton)
nailing up a notice of the new Government Conciliation Scheme, with
Sir George Askwith as chairman of the Industrial Council. "Don't be
down-hearted," he observes. "Let's hope we shall be able to make as
much trouble as before." This was apportioning the responsibility for
failure in advance; but unfortunately failure there was. _Punch's_
frontispiece to 1912 is the "tug of war" of Labour and Capital. The
coal crisis was again acute in February, but in its opening stages
_Punch's_ hostility was chiefly displayed against the coal merchant,
who was against strikes, but the more they were threatened the better
it suited his book. _Punch_ derived a certain malicious satisfaction
from the spectacle of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's exclusion from the coal
conference; but recognized that the final arbiter was not this or that
leader or statesman but Famine. The thorny question of "blackleg"
labour having again emerged, _Punch_ asserted the right of the
community in no uncertain terms. John Bull declares that he can't make
the _striker_ work, if he won't; but if others want to, he can and will
make the striker let them. This strike introduced a new figure into
_Punch's_ portrait gallery; "Prince Petroleo" being introduced for the
first time as a possible "second string" and rival of the hitherto
indispensable King Coal. But such light-hearted treatment is henceforth
rarely found in the treatment of industrial troubles. By the summer
John Bull is seen on the edge of the crater of Labour unrest, listening
vainly for any reassuring voices from its depths. The methods of the
Trade Unionist are contrasted with those of Justice: he is all for
striking first and arguing afterwards. The threat of a general strike
was heard in June, but _Punch_ remained sceptical as to the response.
Agitators might call spirits from the vasty deep; but there would be no
answer. In 1913 Dublin, for the first time in its long and chequered
career, became the chief focus of industrial unrest in the British
Isles, for this was the year of the strike of the Dublin transport
workers, and the emergence, in the person of the notorious Jim Larkin,
of a super-agitator of the most strenuous type. Strange things were
done in the name of Liberty Hall--his headquarters--Mr. Birrell's
absenteeism having become chronic, not to say conspicuous. Larkin was
arrested and imprisoned, but released with a rapidity which reduced
the penalty to a farce; and the assaults on the Dublin police during
the strike riots in the winter were sufficiently severe to excuse _Mr.
Punch_ for calling their assailants the "be-labouring classes."
[Sidenote: _Labour Members in Transition_]
Mr. John Burns's political evolution, since the days when _Punch_
savagely attacked him at the time of the Trafalgar Square riots in
1884, had long removed him from the range of attack on the score of
his revolutionary views. His former associates regarded him as a
renegade; independent observers found in him an energetic and arbitrary
bureaucrat. _Punch_ appreciated his manliness, but could not resist
having an occasional dig at his complacent egotism, and when the
Cabinet was reconstructed early in 1914, there is a picture of him
praising the four new appointments as "excellent choices--with perhaps
the exception of Samuel, Hobhouse and Masterman"--in other words, all
but his own.
Towards Labour members of the House of Commons, _Punch_, as we have
seen, had of recent years been none too friendly: least of all to
Mr. Keir Hardie. But on the occasion of the debate in the House
over the resignations at the Curragh in March, 1914, _Punch's_
Parliamentary representative credits them with intervening effectually
as representatives of the vast social and political weight behind
them. In particular he praises Mr. John Ward and Mr. J. H. Thomas for
their warning against militarism. "General Gough may feel keenly the
Ulster situation. Tommy Atkins will feel not less keenly the industrial
situation." For Mr. Thomas went on to point out that in the following
November four hundred thousand railwaymen would come to grips with
their employers, and if they did not attain satisfactory terms they
might simultaneously strike. And if the Opposition doctrine in regard
to Ulster were sound, added Mr. Thomas, "it will be my duty to tell
the railwaymen to prepare for the worst by organizing their forces,
the half-million capital possessed by the Union to be used to provide
arms and ammunition for them." Mr. Thomas still occasionally utters
blood-curdling warnings, but is now the special _bête noire_, to put
it mildly, of the Labour extremists. General Gough's views on Ulster
and Ireland have undergone considerable modifications, and Mr. John
Ward, who denounced military juntas, is Colonel John Ward, D.S.O., the
gallant soldier, fearlessly candid friend of Labour and uncompromising
foe of Bolshevism.
[Illustration: THE RECTOR: "Now, Molly, would you rather be
beautiful or good?"
MOLLY: "I'd rather be beautiful and repent."]
[Illustration: UNCLE GEORGE: "What! Hate all your lessons?
Come, now, you don't mean to say you hate history?"
NIECE: "Yes, I do. To tell you the truth, Uncle, I don't care
a bit what anybody ever did."]
[Illustration: MISS SMITH: "Now, Madge, tell me, which would
you rather be--pretty or good?"
MADGE (promptly): "I would rather be pretty, Miss Smith; I can
easily be good whenever I like to try."]
EDUCATION AND THE CHURCHES
The passing of the old order in Education had for its chief landmark
the Act of 1871, but the change admits of endless illustrations.
Many of these lie outside the scope of our survey; but no treatise
on the Modern Child would be complete which did not take account
of _Punch's_ contributions to this engrossing problem. To take one
example, the precocious representatives of the "younger generation" in
Leech's pictures are almost invariably shown as the "sedulous apes"
of their elders as men of the world. In the period under review in
this volume imitation gives place to independence. The precocious
child of both sexes--Leech's precocious children were almost without
exception boys--is sometimes pedantic, but the distinctive note is
one of scepticism and revolt. The young iconoclast has "found out all
about Santa Claus and is now going to look into this Robinson Crusoe
business." When the Rector asks Molly would she rather be beautiful or
good, Molly audaciously replies: "I'd rather be beautiful and repent."
Another version of the same retort is illustrated in Mr. Shepperson's
charming picture. And when Uncle George, shocked by his little
niece's declaration that she hated all her lessons, asks appealingly,
"Come, now, you don't mean to say you hate history?" he receives the
blunt answer: "Yes, I do. To tell you the truth, Uncle, I don't care
a bit what anybody ever did." In this magnificent declaration of
independence _Punch_ sought to reduce to an absurdity the new doctrine
of "self-expression" as adopted by the nursery. _Punch's_ love of
children was beyond question, but he remained in substantial accord
with the Greek sage who said that the roots of education were bitter
but the fruit sweet; that to avoid or evade the discipline of parents
and teachers was to forgo learning and virtue. The modern and already
fashionable inversion of the old method, by which education was to be
"brightened" and sweetened at the outset, and every study turned into
a game, seemed to _Punch_ subversive of what was not merely an old but
an inevitable order, and the new science of psychological "Pædology"
found in him an invariably hostile critic. Passing over a burlesque
article on the "Scientific Investigation of Infancy" based on a paper
in the _Fortnightly_ in 1895, I may note the first of his rejoinders
to those austere educationists who have made war on Wonderland. In
that year Mr. Holman, an inspector of schools, in an address delivered
before the College of Preceptors, declared that "the race has outgrown
fairy-tales, and to use them for early education is practically to
bring about a reversion to type. They express the ideas of a profoundly
ignorant primitive man. The hero has more often than not to lie, steal
and cheat and to be an ingrate to accomplish his ends." A mass meeting
of fairy-tale heroes and heroines, convoked by _Punch_, carried by
acclamation a resolution of protest against this heresy, which, by
the way, has of late years been espoused by the redoubtable Madame
Montessori. _Punch_ carried the war into the enemy's camp in a revised
version of _Cinderella_, rewritten so as to combine instruction with
amusement, and based on the latest scientific, ethnological, and
psychological discoveries and theories; while in "New Lamps for Old"
he retold other nursery tales so as to meet the supposed requirements
of the modern child. I am afraid it must be taken as a confession of
the failure of his efforts that in 1911 _Punch_ described an "advanced
child" replying to his grandmother's offer to tell him a story, "Oh,
no, Granny, not a _story_, please! They're so stodgy and unconvincing
and as out-of-date as _tunes_ in music. We should much prefer an
impressionist word-picture or a subtle character-sketch."
[Sidenote: _The War on Wonderland_]
[Illustration: TOMMY: "Do you believe in fairies, Mrs.
Hardacre?"
MRS. H.: "No, certainly not."
TOMMY: "I'm so glad you're candid about it. There's such a
pose among grown-ups nowadays to _pretend_ they do."]
The attempt to teach gardening at certain schools in the 'nineties
was "guyed" in the account of a disastrous imaginary experiment--the
encouragement of Small Holdings for Small Boys at a fashionable
Preparatory School. Here _Punch_ is irresponsible and reactionary;
but there is point in his criticism of the new-fangled cult of "nature
study," on the ground that even playtime was now made a burden and toil
for children by object lessons. In the same year (1900) the doctrine of
self-expression was proclaimed in strident tones by Mr. Bernard Shaw
in a lecture to the members of the Teachers' Guild of Great Britain.
"Any grown-up person," said the prophet, "guilty of the crime of trying
to form the character of children ought to be drowned. If there is
to be any progress at all, it must be recognized that the children
know better than their teachers." This was almost beyond the reach of
comment or parody, but _Punch_ did his best. Cranks, whether official
or unofficial, he treated with impartial disrespect, and shortly before
falling upon Mr. Shaw he had gibbeted a school inspector who had been
alleged in his report to have penned this immortal sentence:--
The lower babies' mental arithmetic leaves much to be desired.
In the verses on "Spoilt Parents" in 1901 _Punch_ expresses an
obviously ironical approval of filial insubordination as encouraged
in America, and a year later took for his text a passage quoted from
an essay written by an Australian girl of thirteen, in which she had
referred to "The Lady of Shalott" as "a fairy tale I remember in my
childhood." In 1903 the activities of the "Pædologist" furnished Punch
with abundant material. He celebrates, again with ironical applause,
the expulsion of Euclid; he refers to an American lady who, in
discussing suitable literature for children, had found a "moral squint"
in _Jack and the Beanstalk_ and _Bluebeard_; and he founds an excellent
set of verses on an article in the _Contemporary_ by Dr. Woods
Hutchinson. The child, according to this eminent writer, passes through
all the stages of evolution; "he is born not an Anglo-Saxon, but a
Cave-dweller," and _Punch_ proceeds to expound the "recapitulation
theory" as follows:--
When Edward, crawling on the floor,
Invades the eight-day clock,
Pray do not spank him any more
For dirtying his frock.
He is a little troglodyte,
As were our sires before us,
Who vanished when there hove in sight
The grim ichthyosaurus.
When, _ætat._ four, with savage joy
The hunter's art he plies
Upon the panes, don't scold the boy
For torturing the flies.
He has but reached the second scene
When men were all the scions
Of mighty Nimrod, and were keen
On slaying bears and lions.
At six, ambitious Edward yearns
A pirate king to be;
The tables into ships he turns,
And sails the fireside sea.
Then if the things are smashed to bits,
Don't give the boy a licking;
He's reached a further phase, and its
The æon of the Viking.
A little, and the pirate bold
A patriot becomes;
He fights the rascal imps who hold
In force the neighbouring slums.
Pray don't repress his noble rage,
E'en though his nose be gory;
He is but passing through the age
Of good Queen Bess's glory.
Last scene of all that ends this slight
But most eventful play
Is symbol of the lofty height
Achieved by man to-day.
At ten can Edward understand
What money means: he's willing
To be a saint for sixpence, and
An angel for a shilling.
[Sidenote: _Evolution and Self-Expression_]
As a rule, the most clamorous apostles of the new doctrines hailed
from the New World. In 1904 Mr. G. Archibald, a "Child Specialist" of
Montreal, gave utterance to the now familiar view that "Whenever you
say 'Don't' to a child you crush the creative instinct within him which
is the richest and most precious thing he has." _Punch_, it is hardly
necessary to remind the reader, was not likely to subscribe to this
view. Had not the _Daily Telegraph_ referred to his advice to those
about to marry--_Don't_--as "the memorable monosyllabic monition of
the Democritus of Fleet Street"? So we are not surprised to find him
enlarging ironically on the precept of Montreal:--
Should the genius of Marmaduke lead him to rear,
From the dining-room floor to the ceiling,
A palace of crystal and china, oh! fear
To exhibit an atom of feeling.
But your Satsuma bowl you will cheerfully bring,
And, where others would threaten to skin him,
You will beg him to do as he likes with the thing,
Lest you crush the creative within him.
If Lucy refuses potatoes and bread,
And calls for méringues and for trifle,
Or anything else that may enter her head,
Such yearnings another would stifle.
You will hand her a menu-card, beg her to state
What she happens to fancy for dinner,
And pray that you never may find it your fate
To crush the creative within her.
Advancing years failed to reconcile _Punch_ to the non-repressive
method. As late as 1912 one of his artists depicted the chaotic results
in an elementary school of realizing the ideals of one of the pamphlets
of a Teachers' Association, viz., to place a child "in an atmosphere
where there are no restraints, where he can move freely about in the
schoolroom, where the teacher is essentially a passive agent and where
there is no punishment."
[Sidenote: _The Sompting Experiment_]
In this context I may note that about this time _Punch_ frequently
dwells on the unsuitability and extravagant cost of the amusements
provided for children. In "How to Befriend the Gilded Babes" he
castigates without mercy a gentleman who had been writing on
entertainments for titled juveniles, and outlines a children's
party the cost of which is estimated at the modest figure of £250.
_Punch's_ repeated protests against the perversion of pantomimes to
suit grown-ups are too familiar to call for detailed mention, but in
connexion with youthful precocity I may mention a curious anticipation
dating from the autumn of 1905. This is a "domestic drama, composed by
an infant of ten summers who, after reaching mature years, retrieved it
from a box containing his toy theatre and copied it out," exactly as
it stood. The drama, which is entitled "The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing,"
bears all the stigmata of a _bonâ fide_ child's essay in dramatic
authorship, and foreshadows the exploits of "Daisy Ashford" without
being either so funny or so vulgar as _The Young Visiters_. _Punch_ had
always been alive to the educative value of the theatre, and it speaks
well for his vigilance that the remarkable experiment carried out in
the little village of Sompting in Sussex did not escape his notice. The
children were taught by making them act their lessons, and _Punch_ in
some whimsical verses anticipates the extension of the method to the
public schools. It is true that he does not take the experiment quite
seriously, but he does not "crab" it. It was reserved in later years
for a brilliant and enthusiastic educational reformer, Mr. E. G. A.
Holmes, to hail in the Sompting schoolmistress the "Egeria" of the new
_régime_ of elementary instruction. In less benevolent mood _Punch_
quoted in 1907 an apparently genuine letter which had appeared in the
_Children's Realm_, a paper which aimed at teaching "the higher way
of living to the young." The letter describes a small boy who was "a
very earnest vegetarian" and a super-prig into the bargain. _Punch_
was exasperated by prigs in all walks of life, and it rejoiced his
heart when Mr. Roosevelt compared President Wilson to a "Byzantine
logothete." The high-browed infant filled him with dismay, and in
1910 he illustrated the "advance in elementary culture" by a highly
imaginative account of the reply given by a very small boy who had been
asked by a lady visitor whether he enjoyed his recent birthday party:--
HENRY: "In the impression retained by the memory, shades have
ceased to count: it stands, sharply, for a few estimated and cherished
things rather than, nebulously, for a swarm of possibilities. I cut
the silhouette, in a word, out of the curious confusion of it all,
I save and fix the outline, and it is with my eye on this profiled
distinction that as a critic I speak. It is the function of the critic
to assert with assurance when once his impression has become final;
and it is in noting this circumstance that I perceive how slenderly
prompted I am to deliver myself on such an occasion upon the merits
or attractiveness of the entertainment so generously provided for the
diversion of myself and friends."
(Lady visitor before swooning has sufficient presence of mind to ring
the bell for assistance.)
[Illustration: BROTHER: "What did you say to that old chap
just now?"
SISTER: "I only thanked him for picking up my bag."
BROTHER: "My dear girl, you must learn not to be so beastly
_grateful_. It's not done nowadays."]
[Sidenote: _Punch's "Universal Hymn"_]
This is an instance of the danger of trying to kill two birds with
one stone, for the parody of Henry James's later manner distracts our
attention from the main aim of the satire. _Punch_ was more sorry for
than annoyed at the children of Chelsea, of ages from five to sixteen,
who were said in 1908 never to ask for Dickens or the _Jungle Book_
at the Free Library, but to devour works on "science, sociology, fine
arts and religion." In the same year the Sociological Society held an
exhibition of charts and plans, to show parents how to select their
children's toys "as a profound educational agency," but _Punch_ saw in
it nothing but an exhibition of the profoundest Prigmatism--to use a
word which he coined in later years. His bitterest comment on the new
spirit of the young belongs to the year 1913, when a boy of seventeen
rebukes his sister of twelve for thanking an old man for picking up her
bag. The best antidote to this spirit was furnished by the Boy Scout
movement, which grafted on to the public-school code of "playing the
game" the larger ideals of altruism and mutual-as opposed to self-help.
I have already spoken of the origin and development of what was the
greatest non-official and informal contribution to national education
of our times. Logically perhaps it ought to have been discussed in this
chapter, but in its wider implications it belongs to the social and
political history of the last twenty years.
To turn from general tendencies to the controversies which arose out
of the working of the Education Act of 1871, we find that _Punch_
was, as usual, impartially critical of all extremists, whether
clerical or secularist. Against the latter he inveighed in 1894 in his
"Universal Hymn for School Board Hymnals, adapted to modern Educational
requirements":--
Arise my soul--if soul I've got--
And, vaguely vocal, thank
For all the blessings of my lot
The--Unknown Eternal Blank!
I thank the--Streak of Azure Haze
That on my birth has smiled,
And made me, in post-Christian days,
A happy School-Board child.
I was not born, as myriads were,
In ages dark and dim,
And taught to pray a pious prayer,
Or sing a holy hymn.
I was not born a little slave
To formula and creed,
Or taught that Heaven must light the Grave,
Or God-love banish greed.
I was not born when priests might roam
And teach the childish band
To sing about Our Heavenly Home,
Or of that Happy Land!
Mere dogma muddles up the mind,
And leaves it in a mess.
Religion surely was designed
To make our freedom less.
The Conscience-Clause? It may secure
_Some_ freedom to the slave.
But Where's the sense--unless we're sure
That we a conscience _have_?
We've lots of "Standards" which we treasure,
There's one superfluous, quite,
A Standard human wit can't measure
(In Board Schools)--that of Right!
Secular matters make our joys,
And facts are our sole food.
Do we turn out _good_ girls and boys?
Good heavens! What _is_ "Good"?
Through all the periods of my life
One goodness I'll pursue;
With rare "good things" this world is rife;
I'll try to get a few.
At the close of the same year, however, _Punch_ castigates sectarian
bigots with equal vigour. He took for his text a letter by Dr. James
Martineau to _The Times_, in which that "wise and gentle teacher"
had appealed to the conflicting parties of School Board electors and
members to reconcile themselves to a peaceful co-existence on the basis
of our common Christianity. _Punch_ does not spare "secular spleen" and
"shortsighted super-thrift," but his severest criticisms are reserved
for the sectarian zealots, Anglican and Nonconformist, who had broken
up the compromise of 1871, and he concludes:--
Oh, self-elected shepherds, with your crooks,
Fighting, while round your folds the wolves are creeping!--
Pedagogues wrangling o'er your lesson-books,
Whilst your wrath rages human love sits weeping!
If of "a common Christianity"
Ye were but practical and patient teachers,
In Education's task ye might _agree_.
Now sense is asking, "Who shall teach our teachers?"
[Sidenote: _The Abortive Bill of 1896_]
[Illustration: INEXPERIENCED AND ANXIOUS YOUNG MISTRESS: "The
new housemaid, Maria, is a Roman Catholic; but I hope you will not
allow any religious controversy in the servants' hall."
COOK (with much dignity): "You needn't have any fear, my lady.
In really 'igh-class families religion is _never_ mentioned!"]
_Punch's_ comments foreshadowed the conflict that raged over the
Education Bill of 1896, which had been framed to redeem the pledge
given by the Government to aid voluntary schools. Denounced by the
Opposition as a deliberate attempt to shatter the school-board system
and promote the interest of a particular sect, while, on the other
hand, all sects were agreed that the proposed aid was inadequate;
swamped by amendments--1,238, to be precise, had been placed on the
paper when the House met in June after the Whitsuntide Recess--the
Bill was abandoned in Committee without exciting any real regret from
any party. _Punch_ chronicles its withdrawal without any comment, but
his silence cannot be interpreted as expressing satisfaction with the
existing _régime_. In 1899 he falls foul of Sir John Gorst, then the
acting head of the Board of Education, for his alleged intention of
entrusting the teaching of all other children to half-educated pupil
teachers.
The progress and passage of the much-discussed Education Act of 1902
revived _Punch's_ distrust of the so-called "friends" of the human
child. He shows Mr. Balfour on a bicycle steering a perilous and
devious course beset with obstacles, and develops the theme in a fable,
based on that of the Old Woman going to Market, in which Lord Hugh
Cecil, Mr. Bryce, Archbishop Temple, Mr. Lloyd George and Sir William
Harcourt are brought in to represent the various and conflicting
elements in the struggle. _Punch's_ moral is that "if you don't all
hurt each others' feelings a good deal, there's no chance of getting
the Education Bill through Parliament." The truth of this comment was
abundantly shown by the vehement controversy which arose over the
famous Kenyon-Slaney amendment, limiting the right of an incumbent
to give religious instruction in a Church School--a provision which
infuriated the High Anglicans and was reluctantly acquiesced in by
moderate Churchmen. _Per contra_ Dr. Percival, the Bishop of Hereford,
who voted with the Opposition, declared that the Bill had given great
strength to the Opposition to the Church in the country and tended to
destroy its spiritual influence. And Lord Rosebery, while not in favour
of the refusal of Nonconformists to pay rates, confessed that if they
submitted tamely to the enactments of the Bill they would cease to
exist politically.
[Sidenote: _A Stepping-Stone Ministry_]
_Punch_ had no sympathy with the "passive resistance" movement,
and when Mr. Lloyd George in 1904 advocated the closing of all the
elementary schools in Wales as a protest against the Education Act,
he regarded him as more desirous to serve party ends than to save the
souls of the young. In 1906 it was the turn of the Liberals to redeem
_their_ pledges, and Mr. Birrell was in charge of the measure. _Punch_
accordingly depicted him as a schoolmaster saying to the Act of 1902,
"My boy, this [the cane he is holding] can't hurt you more than it's
going to hurt me." _Punch_ evidently had no love for the new Bill, but
his satire is impartially levelled at the irreconcilable sectarian
differences of the supporters and antagonists of the measure. All this
wrangling had nothing to do with the education of children. The gradual
and inevitable transformation of the measure by the end of the year
is happily hit off in an adaptation from "Alice in Wonderland," with
Mr. Balfour as the Cheshire Cat and Mr. Birrell as Alice carrying what
_had_ been a baby, but was now a pig, as the Cheshire Cat expected.
[Illustration: "I am glad to see you come so regularly to our evening
services, Mrs. Brown."
"Yus. Yer see, me 'usband 'ates me goin' hout of a hevening, so I does
it to spite 'im."]
The Education Office in these years was the great jumping-off ground
for aspirants to higher Ministerial office, and was occupied by a
succession of "transient and (sometimes) embarrassed phantoms." Mr.
Birrell quitted Whitehall to govern Ireland from Overstrand, and in
1908 _Punch_, in his cartoon on the tardy compromise achieved by the
Church and Nonconformity, showed "Master Runciman," with his Bill,
being carried safely through the waters of strife by the Archbishop of
Canterbury and Dr. Clifford.
[Illustration: MOTHER (visiting son at preparatory school):
"Well, my darling!"
SON: "I say, Mother, don't look so ghastly pleased before all
these fellows."]
In 1905, according to the _Scotsman_ (quoted by _Punch_), the
prospective Unionist candidate for Berwick maintained before a meeting
of electors that "the only way to deal with the religious question was
to allow each denomination to provide religious teaching in school
hours _for the parents of such children as desired it_." The italics
are provided by _Punch_, who threw further light on the need for this
"vicarious religion" in an illustrated dialogue published in 1911:--
SCHOOLMISTRESS: "And am I to give the child religious
instruction?"
MOTHER: "I don't care wot yer do so long as yer don't bash
'er abaht the 'ead."
[Sidenote: _John Bull, Junior_]
Throughout this period _Punch_ was perhaps more concerned with the
youngest than with the younger generation--with the progress of the
child than with that of the ingenuous youth. Yet he was not neglectful
of the changes going on in public and preparatory schools. The picture
of "John Bull, Junior," in 1905 represents the human boy of the
public-school type as still primarily interested in pastime:--
For instance, his industry's tireless
In getting his _Wisden_ by rote;
But of Signor Marconi (the wireless)
He takes the most negligent note.
That the primary use of the cable
Is cricket, he's free to maintain--
He associates cricket with Abel,
And bats with the mention of Cain.
He can't tell the whereabouts clearly
Of Constantinople or Prague,
But he'll talk by the hour about Brearley,
He'll tell you the birthplace of Haigh.
He cannot be sure if the Hooghly's
A river, a town, or a hill;
But then upon Bosanquet's "googlies"
A volume he'd easily fill.
This was before the aeroplane and the motor had infected schoolboys
with a passion for mechanics, and the view expressed is borne out by
a suggestion made in 1907 by Sir J. J. Thomson, and duly noted in
_Punch_, that boys should go to school in holiday time and during term
time should "stay at home and learn something." A year earlier _Punch_
had very properly laid his finger on a blot in the school system--the
inadequate salaries of assistant masters. In "The Worm Turns" he had
enlarged on the protest which one of the number had registered in the
_Westminster Gazette_. It was all very well, as "Kappa" had done in
the columns of that paper, to abuse schoolmasters, but what could you
expect at the price when, at the best preparatory schools, £120 a year,
resident, was considered adequate pay for a first-class man, and things
were not much better in the public schools. Hence _Punch's_ versified
gloss, in which the much-maligned assistant master sums up the matter
thus:--
Ah, well, it may be we are all past praying for,
But in this world one gets what one is paying for,
(That seems a fairly obvious remark);
And I for one, although exposed so crushingly,
Still mean to draw my salary unblushingly--
That of a third-rate clerk.
[Illustration: UNANSWERABLE
YOUNG HOPEFUL: "'Shamefully ignorant'! Of course I'm ignorant,
Father. But then why did you send me to a Public School? I always
look upon a fellow who's learnt anything at a Public School as a
_self-educated man_!"]
_Punch_ clearly admitted that all was not well with a system in which
undue prominence was attached to the athletic prowess, and in 1909 he
pilloried an advertisement for a schoolmaster which had appeared in
the _Spectator_: "Rugby Blue required. Football is the chief subject,
but elementary Latin, English and Mathematics are also looked for." On
the other hand, _Punch_ was no believer in the commercializing of our
public schools. When Lord Rosebery in 1896 had said that "an inquiry
by Chambers of Commerce into the progress of technical and commercial
education in Germany would make our hair stand on end," _Punch_ showed
him as the Fat Boy in _Pickwick_ saying, "I wants to make yer flesh
creep." And when, in the fateful year 1914, a "Commercial Side," on
lines already laid down in many secondary schools of a different type,
was started at Bradfield College, _Punch_ sought to reduce the plan to
an absurdity by an imaginative account of its working.
[Sidenote: _School Diet_]
[Illustration: The Headmaster of Rugby is reported to have said at the
recent Conference on School Diet that "while adults should rise from
the table hungry, children should reach a sense of repletion before
rising."
HOUSE-MASTER (with pride, to Parent): "Then with regard to
food: we feed our boys to repletion five times a day, and our chef's
puddings have no equal in any school in the kingdom."]
As regards the feeding of boys at school, the change from the Spartan
_régime_ of the previous generation can be vividly illustrated from
the pages of _Punch_. Down to the close of the Victorian age, hampers
were, if not an absolute necessity, at any rate a welcome supplement
to the frugal diet provided at most schools. In 1899 _Punch_ supported
the continuance of hampers in some ironical verses inspired by a letter
in the _Daily Chronicle_ from a schoolmaster's wife. The good lady had
complained of the effect of Tuck upon the ethics of schoolboys, and
advocated ordinary school diet. _Punch_ at the time regarded this as
a counsel of stoical perfection utterly wasted on the ordinary human
boy. A very different note was sounded by the Headmaster of Rugby
in 1912, who was reported to have said at the Conference on School
Diet that "while adults should rise from the table hungry, children
should reach a sense of repletion before rising." Accordingly _Punch_
published a picture of a mother with an alarmingly obese small boy
interviewing a house-master who proudly remarks: "Then as to food, we
feed our boys to repletion five times a day, and our chef's puddings
have no equal in any school in the Kingdom." This was an exaggeration
so far as the public schools were concerned, but it was fair satire of
the sumptuousness of the fashionable and expensive preparatory school
of pre-war days. _There_ the pendulum had swung to the opposite extreme
from the meagre diet of the 'seventies, when there was no luxury at
preparatory schools and at many of the public schools the feeding was a
scandal.
On the new relations that had sprung up between boys and masters--the
"elder brother" theory--I do not find any notable mention in _Punch_.
I suspect him of adhering to the old view that it was a far higher
compliment to a master to describe him as a "just beast" than
"popular." The decline of the classical side is touched on, while
the continued inefficiency of instruction in modern languages is
delightfully satirized in the late Mr. F. H. Townsend's picture of
a young lord of creation, the centre of an adoring group of small
sisters. "Now Guy," says his mother, "tell us about the school. Is
everything all right?" "Oh, yes, Mother--except one thing." "My
darling! What is it?" "Well, I wish you hadn't got us that French nurse
to teach us the right pronunciation; it makes the other fellows laugh
so." _Punch's_ picture was true of a time now rapidly passing away,
and furnishes a valuable comment on the solution of a century-old
problem. The French master, generally a refugee in the old days, was
never accorded a proper status and very seldom recognized as one
of themselves by his colleagues. He was generally poor, and he was
a standing proof of the saying of the Latin satirist that there is
nothing more cruel about poverty than the fact that it makes people
ridiculous. Also nine times out of ten he was unable to keep order; so
that in the fullness of time headmasters found themselves confronted
by this dilemma. They had to choose between foreigners with a correct
accent who could not maintain discipline, and natives with a bad
accent who could. And in pre-war days they often decided in favour of
the latter.
[Sidenote: _Commerce at the Universities_]
[Illustration: SMITHSON JUNIOR (as the homily ends and the
real business is about to start): "Please, sir, is it sterilized?"]
_Punch_ viewed the multiplication of universities with acquiescence
rather than enthusiasm. He had been, as we have seen, a severe critic
of academic obstructives at Oxford and Cambridge, but he was entirely
opposed to their reconstruction on purely utilitarian lines. In his
view there was room for universities of different types; to standardize
them would be a blunder, almost a crime. So when a school of brewing
was established at Birmingham, he gave a forecast of Oxford in the
year 2000 A.D., completely commercialized, with the Ashmolean
transformed into the University Co-operative Stores. In 1901 a daily
paper had said that, compared with the University of Birmingham, Oxford
must seem hopelessly out of date. _Punch_ rejoined in a masque in which
the claims of the old and new universities are reviewed and contrasted,
but the last word is left to the Oxford chorus:--
Out of date and useless we,
Commerce is beyond our ken--
Let us thank the gods we be
Twenty Oxford men.
Mr. Andrew Carnegie's gift of £2,000,000 to the Scottish universities
in the same year is eulogized in the cartoon of "The Macmillion,"
but the prose comment, in which the extensions of the scheme are
foreshadowed, is not lacking in an element of irony.
Mr. Rhodes's historic bequest to Oxford is discussed in an imaginary
letter from a Cambridge to an Oxford don. The Cambridge don ridicules
the notion that it would revolutionize Oxford, convert it into the
University of the Empire, or transform the hoary old home of lost
causes into a realization of the ideals of young barbarians from the
bounding prairie or of the pipe-sucking beer-nurtured students of the
Fatherland. The new-comers would find their level and, if really decent
fellows, would do well enough. "Oxford will still remain Oxford, and
that, at any rate, we may be thankful for." Nor did the Cambridge man
anticipate any serious change in inter-'Varsity relations:--
As to ourselves at Cambridge, why, I fancy we shall be able to
rub along quite comfortably, thank you. If I may use a commercial
expression, we've got our own line of Australians and Canadians and
Americans, and even of Afrikanders, and I think we shall be able to
continue business at the old shop in the old style without any of the
new-fangled additions that Mr. Rhodes has conferred upon Oxford. I'll
wager that when fifty years are past we shall still be able to meet
you on the river, at cricket, at football, nay, even at chess and
billiards, on the same terms of average equality. And in after life we
shall still manage to compete.
This letter, by the way, was virtually a rejoinder to a set of
verses, published a few weeks earlier, in which _Punch_ indulged in
a fantastic forecast of the results of the invasion of the Rhodes
scholars--including an entire revision of the system of examinations
in accordance with the terms of Mr. Rhodes's will. The Craven would be
awarded for manliness and the Ireland for muscle:--
Then at last shall Oxford Greats men
Really be Imperial statesmen.
The sequel has shown that the views ascribed to the Cambridge don were
much nearer the mark.
[Sidenote: _The Awakening of Oxford_]
[Illustration: THE BREAKING OF THE CHARM
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY Oxford University.
THE FAIRY PRINCE Lord Curzon.
THE CHANCELLOR (after reading aloud his "Memorandum"): "Awake,
adorable dreamer!"]
In 1904 _Punch_ ranged himself unfalteringly on the side of compulsory
Greek. Oxford had decided to retain it, and _Punch_, garbed as a
Hellenic sage, appeals to Cambridge not to be outdone in loyalty to the
old faith by her sister. It is hard to avoid reading into the cartoon
"Breaking the Charm" in 1909 more than _Punch_ meant to express. Lord
Curzon, as the Fairy Prince, is seen, with his Memorandum on University
Reform, appealing to the Sleeping Beauty in Matthew Arnold's phrase,
"Awake, adorable dreamer!" Of course, the "adorable dreamer" was bound
to be pictorially represented by a woman, but recent concessions have
lent a special significance to the awakening. Strange to say, the
most powerful and eloquent impeachment of the intrusion of women into
Oxford comes from the New World; from the pen of the most brilliant of
American essayists--Mr. Paul Elmer More. "With petticoats," he writes
of Oxford, "came the world and the conventions of the world; manners
were softened, the tongue was filed, angles of originality were ironed
out; the drawing-room conquered the cloister."
_Punch's_ practical abandonment of the _rôle_ of religious
controversialist was noticed in the previous volume. In the period
under review references to the churches are for the most part confined
to the part they played in connexion with the Education Bills already
mentioned. The echoes of the "No Popery" campaign had so far died
down that, on the publication in 1898 of Mr. Wilfrid Ward's review of
Cardinal Wiseman's life, _Punch's_ notice was not merely sympathetic
but laudatory. "The storm that arose in England on his return from
Rome to England with the rank of Cardinal was sufficient to have blown
a punier man clean off the island. The Cardinal stood four square to
it and lived it down." This is a notable tribute from _Punch_, who
had blown and stormed with the best of the Cardinal's assailants. As
for the now forgotten but once notorious "Kensitite" demonstrations,
_Punch's_ attitude is seen in his advertisement printed in the same
year:--
_To Prize-Fighters and others._--Wanted, MUSCULAR CHRISTIANS
to act as sidesmen; used to _mêlées_ and capable of using their
fists. Liberal terms. Free doctor. Pensions in case of personal
injury. Apply, stating qualifications, to High Church Clerical Agency,
Kensiton, W.
_A propos_ of muscular Christians, in 1900 _Punch_ mentions that a
country curate had recently received notice to quit because though
unexceptionable in other respects, his vicar declared that "what
this parish really needs is a good fast bowler with a break from the
off." Modern clerical methods of acquiring popularity were satirized
in 1905. A Congregational minister had taken part in a theatrical
performance, and _Punch_ gave a burlesque account of a bishop appearing
at a music-hall in a travesty of _Hamlet_ for the benefit of a Decayed
Curates' Fund.
[Sidenote: _Anti-Clericalism in France_]
Bishops and deans have done wonderful things of late years, but this
particular forecast remains fortunately unfulfilled hitherto. To 1906
belongs one of the few cartoons in this period in which the relations
of Church and State are directly referred to. For this was the year
in which the French Government cancelled the Concordat and laid an
interdict on the Religious Orders. The policy found no favour from
_Punch_. In "The Triumph of Democracy" he showed a French priest,
a dignified figure, standing outside a doorway guarded by a French
soldier, and bearing the notice: "République Française. Liberté,
Egalité, Fraternité. Entrée interdite au Clergé."
[Illustration: HOSTESS: "And do you really believe in
Christian Science?"
VISITOR: "Well, you see, I've been getting rather stouter
lately, and it's such a comfort to know that I _really_ have _no
body_!"]
Sabbatarianism gave _Punch_ little or no chance, save for a mild
protest against the action of the L.C.C. with regard to the Queen's
Hall Concerts in 1898. The change is accurately reflected in the
opening lines:--
Ah! County C., why stop our glee?
For bigotry is dead;
The broader mind can nowhere find
Remotest cause to dread
An instant fall of scruples all
If Sunday's gloom should flee;
We're all agreed in word and deed,
Except the County C.
_Punch's_ occupation as an anti-Sabbatarian was practically gone by
the end of the last century. Bishops had ceased to provoke his satire
by their opulence, though the balance-sheet, issued by the Bishop
of London in 1905 to prove how hard it was to make both ends meet,
excited some good-humoured raillery. Christian Science _Punch_ left
severely alone, save for an occasional negligible or oblique reference.
His last and most forcible intervention in religious controversy was
provoked by the action of the Bishop of Zanzibar in protesting against
the administration of the Holy Communion to non-Anglican members. In
the cartoon "The Black Man's Burden" in January, 1914, _Punch_ drew
two negroes singing as a duet "Why do de Christians rage?" and this
scathing comment undoubtedly reflected the views of the great majority
of moderate Churchmen at home as well as missionaries and colonial
administrators abroad.
I have spoken elsewhere of _Punch's_ share in the Dreyfus controversy,
and may add that while laudably free from anti-Semitic partisanship, he
did not refrain from satirizing the ostrich-like attitude of the Jews
in transition who thought that the signs of race could be obliterated
by a change of name.
Reverence and admiration in full measure inspire the tribute to the
wise and sagacious Leo XIII, when he died in 1903:--
The long day closes and the strife is dumb,
Thither he goes where temporal loss is gain,
Where he that asks to enter must become
A little child again.
And since in perfect humbleness of heart
He sought his Church's honour, not his own,
All faiths are one to share the mourner's part
Beside the empty throne.
[Illustration: THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN
Refrain by natives of South Africa and Kikuyu.]
The _amende_ to Cardinal Wiseman has been already noted, and I like
to end this section with an even more striking palinode--the most
notable that had appeared in _Punch_ since his posthumous tribute to
Lincoln. _Punch_ had assailed the Salvation Army and its founder with
all the weapons at his command in the early days of that movement.
Happily he did not wait till General Booth's death to acknowledge his
error. In the autumn of 1908 General Booth and Mr. John Burns had
both been subjected to severe criticism at the Trade Union Congress,
and are shown in a cartoon standing outside the door of the meeting
saying to _Mr. Punch_: "You see before you two condemned criminals."
_Punch_ replies: "Well, I shouldn't worry about that," and they rejoin
in unison: "We don't." This was indirect commendation; there were no
reserves in the memorial verses on General Booth's death in August,
1912. _Punch_ compares him with the warrior saints of old time and
continues:--
Nay, his the nobler warfare, since his hands
Set free the thralls of misery and her brood--
Hunger and haunting shame and sin that brands--
And gave them hope renewed.
Bruised souls, and bodies broken by despair,
He healed their heartache, and their wounds he dressed,
And drew them, so redeemed, his task to share,
Sworn to the same high quest.
Armed with the Spirit's wisdom for his sword,
His feet with tidings of salvation shod,
He knew no foes save only such as warred
Against the peace of God.
Scorned or acclaimed, he kept his harness bright,
Still, through the darkest hour, untaught to yield,
And at the last, his face toward the light,
Fell on the victor's field.
No laurelled blazon rests above his bier,
Yet a great people bows its stricken head
Where he, who fought without reproach or fear,
Soldier of Christ, lies dead.
THE ADVANCE OF WOMEN
In the early 'nineties there was a penny weekly paper called _Woman_,
of a mildly "feministic" type, which took for its motto "Forward,
but not too fast." There was no reason to suspect its founders of
deliberately choosing two adjectives, each of which bore an ambiguous
meaning; taken in their literal sense they aptly epitomize the
spirit of Feminism in the early years of a phase which began with
"emancipation novels" and ended in a resort to physical force. Yet
even at the outset the more sober representatives of the movement were
being forced into the background to make way for the more strident
spokeswomen of the doctrine of equal rights. The prim spinster and
the apostles of culture were replaced by the women who were frankly
"out" to shock public opinion and flout decorum, who rode bicycles
in knickerbockers and wrote "problem" novels. The "New Woman," so
constantly referred to in these years, had many variations--athletic,
literary, worldly, but was always bent on "self-expression." The
fashionable type was caricatured in _Dodo_; the rebellious daughter
was glorified in Grant Allen's story, now only remembered in its
title--_The Woman who Did_. Ibsen was very much in the air, and his
remark that the modern daughter felt the need for "a mild kind of
_Wanderjahr_" impelled _Punch_ to discourse on "Rosamund and the
_Wanderjahr_" (a good deal "after" Miss Edgeworth's story of _Rosamund
and the Purple Jar_). His views are non-committal but apparently
unsympathetic. On the other hand, he welcomed somewhat prematurely the
admission of women to the Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society,
recognized their skill and endurance as Alpine climbers, applauded
their adoption of the calling of gardeners, hailed the appearance
of a Women's Eight on the Thames--coached, it should be added, by
a distinguished member of his staff--and duly chronicled the first
inter-'Varsity Women's hockey match in 1894. The first illustration
of a woman bicycling in knickerbockers occurs in the same year. Under
the heading "The 'Arden-ing Process," Orlando addresses his companion:
"Tired, Rosalind?" and she replies with quite unfeminine brevity:
"Pneumatically." No attempt is made to represent the new garb as
unbecoming, as in the days of "Bloomerism," but rather the reverse.
[Illustration: THE 'ARDEN-ING PROCESS
ORLANDO: "Tired, Rosalind?"
ROSALIND: "Pneumatically."]
Towards the "New Woman" on her intellectual side, _Punch_ was decidedly
hostile. One could not find a better expression of his views than in
the large illustration, "Donna Quixote," in April, 1894. The central
figure, wearing pince-nez and waving a latchkey, is formidable rather
than repellent. Around her on the floor lie books by Ibsen, Tolstoi and
Mona Caird, and in the decorative border (which embodies her visions)
she is seen tilting at the dragon of Decorum, and smiting down the
triple Cerberus of Mrs. Grundy, "Mamma" and Chaperon. Du Maurier's
"Passionate Female Literary Types" in the same year are unlovely to
the verge of hideousness, and the legends are frankly satirical. When
"Sarah Grand" declared that Man, morally, was "in his infancy" and that
"now Woman holds out a strong hand to the Child-man," and insisted
on helping him up by "spanking proper principles into him in the
nursery," _Punch_ quoted back at her "Ouida's" statement that "the New
Woman was an unmitigated bore," and went on:--
[Sidenote: _The New Womanhood_]
There is a New Woman, and what do you think?
She lives upon nothing but Foolscap and Ink!
But, though Foolscap and Ink form the whole of her diet,
This nagging New Woman can never be quiet!
The ironical protest registered by _Punch_ against ladies who insisted
on travelling in smoking carriages and then objected to smoking, only
serves to show how far we have travelled in the last thirty years.
Another passing phase in the history of sex-antagonism is to be found
in the record of the first of many dinners at which only literary
ladies were allowed to be present. _Punch_ printed a letter signed "A
Daughter of Eve who remembers Adam," who observed that "the Literary
Ladies' Dinner of the 1st of June only needed one feature to be
absolutely perfect--the presence of Gentlemen." Whether the letter was
_bonâ fide_ or not, it probably expressed the view of the majority
of those present. The more violent the manifestations of the New
Womanhood, the more reactionary became _Punch's_ attitude. His reaction
reached a culminating point in 1894, when he painted the following
sketch of "A Modern Madame":--
She has aspirations after the impossible, and is herself far from
probable; she regards her husband as an unnecessary evil, and her
children as disturbances without compensating advantages.
She writes more than she reads and seldom scribbles anything.
She has no feelings, and yet has a yearning after the intense.
She is the antithesis of her grandmother, and has made further
development in generations to come quite impossible.
She thinks without the thoughts of a male, and yet has lost the
comprehension of a female.
To sum up, she is hardly up to the standard of a man, and yet has sunk
several fathoms below the level of a woman.
So again he reverts to his older views on Education _à propos_ of the
"Pioneers":--
Ah, learn whate'er you will, yet spare our hearts
A home-grown, feminine Baboo of Arts.
Believe it, envious maids, the men you spurn
Think little of the honours that they earn.
Too well they're taught in common sense's rules
To dwell upon their triumphs in the Schools,
And chiefly prize the Baccalaureate fur
Because, in love's young days, it pleases Her.
But you, in purpose tyrannously strong,
Get, in each effort, your perspective wrong.
Learn all you wish to learn, exult in learning,
For Hymen's torch keep midnight oil a-burning,
Bulge your fair foreheads with those threatening bumps,
Ungraceful as an intellectual mumps,
Be blatant, rude, self-conscious as you can,
Be all you feign--and imitate--in Man,
Spurn all the fine traditions of the past,
Be New or nothing--what's the gain at last?
You know as much, with hard-eyed, harsh-voiced joy,
As the shock-headed, shambling fifth-form boy;
Adding, what his sound mind would never please,
An Asiatic hunger for degrees.
True learning's that alone whereon are based
Clear insight, reason, sympathy, and taste.
Not relic-worshipping of bones long dry,
Not giving puppet-life to x and y,
And walking haughtily a fair world through
Because some girls can't do the sums you do.
Still less, the little, little world of cliques,
Where Mutual Admiration dons the breeks,
And then proceeds kind tolerant man to flout--
A petulant, unresented Barring-out.
Meanwhile our faith looks on, devoid of fear,
Facing the hatchet of the Pioneer.
Still will the storm, in Nature's potent plan,
Be temper'd to the shorn, or bearded, man.
Your sex will still be perfect in its place,
With voice of melody and soul of grace.
Pose, lecture, worry, copy as you will,
Man will be man, and woman woman still!
[Sidenote: _The Real New Woman_]
By way of reducing the "misanthropic" attitude of some of the "New
Women" to absurdity, _Punch_ reported a probably apocryphal dialogue
between two men: "I say, old man, is it true that your wife has
been asked to resign at the Omphale Club?" "Well, yes; you see, the
Committee found out that she'd been guilty of ungentlemanly conduct."
But what exasperated _Punch_ most of all was the decadent preciosity of
the irregulars who espoused the cause of the New Womanhood. One need
only mention "The Woman who Wouldn't Do," illustrated _à la_ Beardsley,
where "Yellow Book" morality is burlesqued in the phrase "marriage is
a degrading system, nurtured under the purple hangings of the tents
of iniquity." These moods of disgust seldom lasted long. _Punch_ was
no wholesale hater of modernity, and in his verses on "The Real New
Woman" frankly admitted that there was much in her to admire. One
notes a change of ideal in the absence of any mention of her cooking
qualifications; and in the admission that "she's splendid at seeing a
joke," _Punch_ acknowledges a great advance on the buxom but humourless
damsels of Leech. The first mention of a Ladies' Football Club in 1895
brings home to us the fact that what passed for prejudice in 1895
with enthusiastic advocates of sex equality has been confirmed by the
judgment of those best qualified to judge down to 1921.
_Punch's_ epigram on woman's "Asiatic hunger for degrees" represents
a passing mood rather than his general attitude to the demand. "The
lady students of the Universities," wrote _The Times_ on March 13,
1896, "have received a cruel series of rebuffs in the last few days.
On Tuesday week the Congregation of the University of Oxford refused
to admit them to the B.A. degree. On Tuesday last it followed up
this blow by rejecting all the resolutions proposed as alternatives.
Yesterday the Cambridge Senate inflicted the unkindest cut of all by
practically imitating the ungallant example of Oxford." Yet, instead
of exulting over their defeat, _Punch_ was decidedly sympathetic in
his cartoon of Minerva, with her owl in a cage, met at the gates of
the Oxford Schools by a corpulent bespectacled Don, who observes,
"Very sorry, Miss Minerva, but perhaps you are not aware that this
is a monastic establishment." One notes a certain inconsistency
in _Punch's_ condemning women for their disregard of the fine art
of gastronomy, preferring "a tray on a rickety side-table" or the
haphazard arrangements of a picnic to regularity and comfort at
meals, and almost in the same breath rebuking them for flouting the
sweet domesticities of home and indulging in extravagant pleasures in
public. Another interesting sign of the times is recorded a couple of
years later in "The Modern Woman's _Vade Mecum_"--showing a reaction
against the old notion that the blue stocking must be above any regard
for appearances. Here the governing idea is that cleverness need not
be divorced from fascination; that fine heads should be covered with
pretty toques; that pince-nez are more becoming than spectacles; and
that literary women should not neglect fashion journals or sacrifice
toilet to intellect. The allusion in the same year (1898) to a Women's
Club consisting exclusively of women who would not marry because they
could not find husbands intellectual enough to suit them, was probably
an exaggeration. But there were Feminist stalwarts who virtually
expressed that view; just as there were enthusiasts of "mixed hockey,"
then beginning to come into fashion, who may not have been entirely
uninfluenced by a matrimonial motive.
The proposal to allow women to hold municipal office, included in the
Local Government Bill, was vetoed in 1899, but not before _Punch_
had issued a pictorial forecast of a procession, headed by the Right
Worshipful the Lady Mayor, with female mace-bearer, sword-bearer, Town
Clerk and "she-rives." The Cecil family have been of late years active
in support of the Woman Suffrage Movement, but Lord Salisbury was no
feminist. In 1899 Colonel Denny introduced a Bill making the provision
of seats for shop assistants compulsory. _Punch_ describes how this
modest measure was "turned down" in the Lords on the initiative of the
Prime Minister, who scented in the concession possibilities of a revolt
of domestic servants. In 1900 the "New Woman," i.e. the heroine of the
"Woman who Did" type, is described as moribund if not defunct. The
fashion of knickerbockers went out with the century. Women chauffeurs,
however, make their appearance in 1900, and the correct designation
for them is discussed. But for a couple of years women's claims and
pretensions were largely submerged by the War. There was a strange
product much in evidence at the Mount Nelson Hotel, Cape Town, but
Punch overlooked the vagaries which were admirably satirized in a once
famous Limerick:--
There was a young lady of Berwick,
Whose conduct was highly hysteric.
She followed the guns
And distributed buns
To the men who were down with enteric.
[Sidenote: _The Housewife's Burden_]
The Club movement was spreading rapidly, and the founding of the
"Ladies' Army and Navy Club" in 1902 prompts a burlesque on the
qualifications insisted on for membership in the Ladies' Athenæum,
Conservative, Travellers' and Bachelors' Clubs. _Punch_ again sounds
the plea for the revival of domesticity in the "Prayer of a Lady
Principal" addressed to Oxford Women Students, with apologies to Mr.
Kipling:--
Take up the housewife's burden--
All ye whose schools are done,
Who let your foolish fancy dwell
On thoughts of coming fun.
Put _Games for Girls_ upon the shelf
With Jowett, Jebb, and Gow;
Be Mrs. Beeton's Homely Hints
Your _vade mecum_ now.
Take up the housewife's burden--
No lofty rule of queens,
But long and sordid service--
The slave to ways and means.
Have done with flighty folly!
Throw off your infant past!
'Tis yours to cope with butcher's bills,
To make the mutton last.
Take up the housewife's burden--
The truceless wars of peace;
Go, humour whimsy housemaids,
And wait your cook's caprice.
And when your hopes are highest
(When both ends nearly meet),
Your lord's untimely lavishness
Shall all your thrift defeat.
Take up the housewife's burden--
Ye shall not shun the call;
Nor cry too loud on Culture,
When darns and dusting pall.
Go, face the test of wifehood--
To wield the adoring rod,
And treat a Man as merely
Half baby and half god.
The then fashionable alternative is ironically extolled in an
irreverent parody of Kingsley's lines, as adapted for a Young Lady's
album:--
Be smart, dear girl, and let who will be other;
Break from the fold, not stick there like a lamb;
So shall your lot, as maid and wife and mother,
Be one Grand Slam.
An article by Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick in the _Cornhill_, on English and
Teuton domestic ideals, served _Punch_ in 1904 as the text for a ballad
comparing the thrifty German _Hausfrau_ with the extravagant English
wife. The infatuated writer sums up entirely in favour of the dainty,
decorative Dolly as against the patient, industrious, but dowdy Grisel.
Yet in the same year _Punch_ was much exercised with the inevitable
decline of chivalry:--
Doubtless the better sort would gladly nourish
Those notions which occur in Arthur's tale;
Doubtless Romance might still contrive to flourish,
Changing its knightly for its Daily Mail,
If Woman would but give our modern gallants
A livelier chance to ventilate their talents.
Men ride abroad in rubbered automobiles,
Naked of armour, bar the nauseous smell,
Not bound on any ransom save to owe bills
Contracted by some errant damosel,
So that in Carlton's Halls, superbly gowned,
She may adorn their Dinner-table Round:
But here their service ends. They fain would wrestle
With horrid dragons or a heathen crew;
Ride _ventre à terre_ to help the weaker vessel,
Behaving just as Lancelot used to do;
Only you cannot keep it up much longer
When once the weaker sex becomes the stronger.
[Sidenote: _Matrons and Militants_]
An equally interesting feature of the times was what might be
alternatively called the Revolt or the Apotheosis of Middle Age.
Perhaps the first mention of what threatened to be an unfair
competition of the matron with the maid is to be found in the verses in
1896, where we read of the modern woman:--
If married and mother she yet plays her part,
With six charming children she still must look "smart,"
For, judging by facts, what Society likes
Is a maid who is bold, and a matron who bikes.
Golf and dancing, however, were the great opportunities of the young
middle-aged women who refused to retire to the shelf as in early
Victorian days. In 1904 _Punch_ printed a story about golf, in which
a maiden aunt "scores" overwhelmingly and turns out to be a champion
player, to the confounding of her nephew and niece, a _dénoûment_
beyond imagination's widest stretch twenty years earlier.
With 1905 we plunge into the new phase of the Suffrage question. At
the outset _Punch_ was decidedly sympathetic. Note, for example, the
cartoon in which a beery working man--a "qualified voter"--addresses
a well-dressed, refined-looking woman: "Ah, you may pay rates an'
taxes, and you may 'ave responserbilities an' all; but when it comes to
_votin'_, you must leave it to _us men_!" In a brief year _Punch_ was
thoroughly estranged by the methods of the militants and their harrying
of Ministers. His "Sensible Woman" retorts on her "Shrieking Sister":
"_You_ help our cause? Why, you're its worst enemy." Raids on the House
of Commons and scenes in the Lobbies and the Ladies' Gallery drove him
in the Epilogue to 1906 to take a new line. Since in the course of
the Crusade women had descended to man's brutal level, put off their
dignity and womanliness, and become "the complete elector"--"why, then,
Madam, when you get the franchise, as you will eventually, I shall say
to myself--_Serve 'em right_." The name "suffragette" had been coined,
and came to stay for about fifteen years, at any rate; _Punch_ tried
his hand at a new variant--"the Insuffrabelles." It was still possible
to laugh at a movement which intermittently ministered to mirth; as,
for example, when a New York correspondent of a London paper wrote as
follows:--
"In the course of a sympathetic discussion on the good work done for
the cause by the Suffragettes in London at a meeting of a woman's
society for political study, Mrs. Cory, a prominent advocate of female
equality, gave a definition of a Utopian dream which woman must not
rest until she has realized. 'Knowing as I do our ideals,' said Mrs.
Cory, 'confident as I am that we shall attain them, I fix my gaze
upon the brightening future, hopefully awaiting the time when a woman
on trial for her life will be defended by a female lawyer, convicted
by a female jury' (the natural result, we presume), 'sentenced by a
female judge, consoled by a female chaplain, and executed by a female
executioner. Then, and not till then, will she have attained her
proper place in the world.'"
_Punch_, with commendable reticence, contents himself with observing,
"nothing, however, was said as to which world." In 1907 we encounter
a picture describing the embarrassment of an unfortunate man
invited to tea at a ladies' club by a lady who had forgotten that
the afternoon was consecrated to a "Down with Men" Meeting. In
"Cross-examining a Suffragist" _Punch_ dexterously manoeuvres a
witness into the admissions (1) that nothing could cause Miss Pankhurst
greater suffering than to stay idly at home while other women were
demonstrating and going cheerfully to martyrdom; (2) that the greater
the suffering, the greater the proof of faith in the Cause. Whereupon
his Lordship then delivered judgment as follows:--
That Miss Pankhurst and her family should show their faith in
the cause by suffering in the way suggested by _Mr. Punch_. That
they should stay quietly at home for a while--keep out of the
newspapers--arrange no demonstrations--go to no prison; seeing that
this would be a much truer and more effective martyrdom than anything
they had done as yet.
[Sidenote: _Argument and Ridicule_]
[Illustration: THE SPLIT
BUDDING SUFFRAGETTE: "I say, Pussy" (with intensity), "are you
a Peth or a Pank?"]
"And," continued his Lordship, waxing eloquent, "if time hangs heavy on
their hands----
"Are there no beggars at the gate,
Nor any poor about the lands?
Oh! teach the orphan boy to read,
Or teach the orphan girl to sew,
Pray Heaven for a Woman's heart,
And let the Woman's Suffrage go."
From argument _Punch_ turned to burlesque in his imaginary forecast
"The Fight for Childhood Suffrage in 1927." One cannot blame him
for making capital out of a misprint in which the various suffrage
societies were credited with "tactics that differ, but whose aims
lead to the same _gaol_." But argument and ridicule were powerless to
influence the extremists. The moderates did not always disavow the
methods of lawlessness. A highly respected and elderly peeress actually
advocated the withdrawal of all subscriptions to charitable objects
until women should be given the vote. A steady _crescendo_ in violence
marks the progress of the campaign in 1908. "How long," asks _Punch à
propos_ of "domiciliary" visits and raids, "are our Cabinet Ministers
to be made the sport of clamorous women? Cattle-driving in Ireland,
deplorable as a form of popular pastime, is a trifle compared with
this new sport of Cabinet Minister-hunting?" This new sport, however,
was only in its infancy. Meanwhile the merry game of martyrdom went
on. One day, so ran the recital of her prison experiences given by a
released Suffragette, "we organized a grand lark. We all agreed to roar
like hungry animals at dinner-time. We made a fearful noise." After
this, remarks the sardonic _Punch_, "we hope we shall hear no more
of women being devoid of a sense of humour." But even at this early
stage of the campaign _Punch_ seems to have realized that, apart from
the merits of the case, the victory would rest with the side which
made itself the greater public nuisance until its wish was granted.
Mr. Asquith is shown in the summer of 1908 with a Suffragette playing
the Beggar-maid to his Cophetua, and saying, "'This beggar-maid shall
be my Queen'--that is, if there's a general feeling in the country
to that effect." A couple of weeks later Mr. Haldane, "thinking
Territorially" as he watches a procession of Suffragettes, enviously
observes, "If I could only get the _men_ to come forward like this!" On
the whole, _Punch_ jibes impartially and genially at Suffragists and
anti-Suffragists alike. There is an ominous reference in the summer of
1908 to the remark of a stone-thrower: "It will be bombs next time,"
but pictorially, at any rate, _Punch_ was inclined to make light of the
persecution of Ministers and M.P.s.
[Sidenote: _The Coming of the "Flapper"_]
In a cartoon at the end of the year, by an inversion of the classical
legend, "Persea" (the anti-Suffragist League) is shown coming to the
rescue of Mr. Asquith as "Andromedus," while the spirit of Milton is
invoked in a mock-heroic sonnet, after Wordsworth:--
England hath need of thee: she is a den
Of roaring lions--women _versus_ men.
[Illustration: KING COPHETUA AND THE BEGGAR-MAID
THE KING (Mr. Asquith): "'This beggar-maid shall be my
Queen'--that is, if there's a general feeling in the country to that
effect."]
To 1908 also belongs _Punch's_ recognition of the advent of the
Flapper, whose intrusions and insubordinations are happily hit off in
"The New Autocrat":--
Ere hockey had shown her what sport meant,
Ere yet she grew giddy and pert,
She doted on dolls and deportment,
And only came down for dessert:
Her sisters would apprehend no sting
From one so exceedingly green,
Nor jibbed at the casual toasting
Of bashful fifteen.
Her tastes were not always considered;
She seldom got more than her share;
And parents, whenever the kid erred,
Brought suitable pressure to bear!
But gone is the rule of the hoar head;
Old age is dismissed with a grunt;
And youth's irrepressible forehead
Has come to the front!
O wormwood and gall to our women!
O torture far worse than the rack,
To find that the smartest of trim men
Are off on a different tack:
For both at the helm and the prow, too,
There lolls an unspeakable chit,
And Thirty now learns she must bow to
Fourteen and a bit!
Her locks are confined by a ribbon;
Her language is open and free;
She talks like a parrot, she's glib on
The problems that petrify me;
Her phrases are novel; to-day, what
I marvel at most are the queer
Little statements she clinches with "Eh, what!"
Tacked on to "Old dear!"
Though chaperons tell her where minxes
Are certain to go when they die,
A sequence of eloquent winks is
Her sole and sufficient reply;
Though dowagers, itching to slap her,
Would send her in tears to her bed,
The simply ineffable Flapper
Goes smiling instead!
And yet, when reflective December
Repines at the pertness of May,
Sweet solace it is to remember
She too has her time of decay:
She too, when she starts to put flesh on,
Will take a subordinate post,
While babies, devoid of discretion,
Are ruling the roast!
[Illustration: EXCELSIOR!
SUFFRAGIST: "It's no good talking to me about Sisyphus. He was
only a man!"]
The Flapper was destined to assume a more aggressive aspect in
later years--_vide_ Dr. Shadwell's indictment in the _Nineteenth
Century_--but _Punch's_ concluding reflections hold good. Her attitude
towards the Suffrage movement at this stage was perhaps not unfairly
summed up in the remark of a younger sister who declared that she did
not want women to get the vote, because she "liked hearing about the
Suffragettes."
In 1909 the policy of hunger-striking was adopted by the militants;
_Punch_ refers to it, but cannot be blamed for failing to realize the
disastrous possibilities of what proved to be perhaps the most sinister
legacy of the Suffragist extremists to the forces of disorder. In 1910
he waxes ironical over Lady Cook's suggestion that it would be wiser
for the men to capitulate at once. Their rule, she asserted, was nearly
over; but, if and when the tables were turned, women must not retaliate
but resist all attempts to humiliate and degrade men. This magnanimity
only excited _Punch's_ mirth; and the advertisement in a weekly paper:
"Lady, having quarrelled with all her friends, desires to meet another
in same position," impelled him to devise the rules for a "Mutual
Aggravation Society" for the special benefit of the more militant
Suffragettes, misogamists and man-haters. _Punch_, I may note in
passing, acknowledged the enterprise of the woman aviator, _à propos_
of an announcement in the _Daily Mail_ that already "Five women can
fly," but deplored their unsightly kit, which suggested an Esquimaux in
goggles.
[Sidenote: _Cabinet Cleavage_]
[Illustration: MILITANT SUFFRAGIST (after long and futile
efforts to light a fire for her tea-kettle): "And to think that only
yesterday I burnt two pavilions and a church!"]
To return to the Suffrage campaign, the troubles of the Prime Minister
are indicated in a cartoon showing Suffragist and anti-Suffragist
tilting at one another in the ring while Mr. Asquith, endeavouring to
get out of the way, remarks: "This is no place for me." A little later,
under the heading "Excelsior," a determined-looking Suffragette appears
as Sisyphus rolling up a huge stone labelled "Women Suffrage," and
saying: "It's no good talking to me about Sisyphus. He was only a man."
During the next three years and a half _Punch_ repeatedly illustrated
the cleavage in the Cabinet and amongst the Suffragists, and exhibited
a progressive resentment against the violence of the extremists. In
"Sermons in Stones" (1911) John Bull tells a non-militant Suffragist
that he could listen more attentively to her arguments "were it not
for these concrete arguments, which I find rather distracting," viz.,
the stones and bricks flying through the window of his house. In
"United We Differ" (1912) Mr. (now Lord) Harcourt and Mr. Lloyd George
are shown back to back on the same platform, advocating respectively
Votes and No Votes for Women, while in "Rag-Time in the House" (1913)
the cross-currents are shown in a dance of Ministers and Opposition
leaders. To the same year belongs the highly ironical cartoon "The
Majesty of the Law." Justice, blindfolded and wearing a fool's cap
labelled "Votes for Women," leans on her sword which is swathed in
the bandage of the Hunger Strike. In 1913 also occur the picture of
the militant Suffragist, an expert incendiary, reduced to despair by
her inability to light her own fire; and the dialogue on the Fifth
of November between two "burning Sapphos": "Coming to our bonfire?"
"Ra-_ther_! Whose house are you burning?"
So we come to the year 1914. When the militant campaign was at its
height, _Punch_ prophesied that women would get the vote by 1919. He
was only a year out, but his prophecy was not complimentary. It takes
the form of an account of a great procession to celebrate the triumph
of destructive methods--burning, blowing up, etc. On reaching the House
of Commons the demonstrators find that it had just been dynamited
and was in flames, and realize that they had not left a single
building standing in London that was large enough to accommodate the
legislature. In the sequel the Vote was won, not by burning churches,
mutilating pictures, or damaging pillar-boxes, but by women's work in
the War. It was not a concession to violence, but an acknowledgment of
public and patriotic service.
INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES, NOVELTIES
In the realm of invention and discovery the period under review was
richer in achievements than any of those dealt with in the preceding
volumes. Again and again imaginative or fantastic forecast was outdone
by reality. Road traffic was revolutionized by the coming and rapid
development of the motor. Space and distance were annihilated by man's
conquest of the air and the introduction of wireless telegraphy.
Scientific research, by the discovery of X-rays and new elements,
more than equalled the pretensions of mediæval thaumaturgists. The
cinematograph added a new entertainment and terror to life. The
submarine, it is true, dated from the time of the American Civil war,
but its improvements clearly foreshadowed the formidable part it was
destined to play in the Great War. The long and splendid annals of
Arctic and Antarctic explorations were crowned by the exploits of Peary
and Amundsen and our own heroic Scott. On this side of the New Order,
as on others, _Punch_ supplies a commentary which, though necessarily
incomplete and irregular, is invariably animated and often instructive.
[Illustration: DECIDEDLY UNCOMFORTABLE
Awkward position of Mr. Newfangle, who, when halfway up a steep hill,
discovers by the sudden retrograde movement of the autocar that the
motor has become exhausted.]
To begin with _terra firma_, one finds an early illustration of the
motor in 1895, when the Hackney observes to the Shire-horse: "Look
here, friend Dobbin, I'll be shod if they won't do away with us
altogether some of these days." The road in the picture is crowded
with bicyclists, male and female, with a traction engine and a "patent
road locomotive" of the waggonette type in the foreground. In 1896 the
unsettled nomenclature of this "new monstrosity from France" is shown
by the various alternative names--autocar, automobile, etc.--gradually
settling down to motor-car. Bells were used as signals--_vide_ the
poem "Tinkle, twinkle, motor-car"--and a speed of twelve miles an
hour is spoken of as typical. _Punch_ was busy throughout the year
with forecasts and prophecies--a motor Derby; a "motor-crawler" for
deer stalkers, not altogether unlike the "scooter" of recent years;
a motor-coach for the Lord Mayor's procession; and a "moto-growler"
almost indistinguishable from the electric brougham. Reference is made
to the trial run of motors from London to Brighton, and the frequent
breakdowns associated with motoring in its early stages are illustrated
in the conjugation of the new verb to "mote":--
[Sidenote: _Motors and Motorists_]
PRESENT TENSE
I mote.
Thou stokest.
He looks out for the police.
We run into a lamp-post.
Ye knock a man over.
They pay damages.
IMPERFECT TENSE
I was moting.
Thou wast trying to steer.
He was carrying a red flag in front.
We were going four hours a mile.
Ye were cussing like anything.
They were giving it up as a bad job.
In 1897 _Punch's_ doggerel verses on "Motor-car-acteristics" are
entirely disparaging to the new mode of locomotion, on the score of
noise, smell and risk. With the new century the question of control
became urgent, and while _Punch_ burlesques the grandmotherly
restrictions adopted by some local authorities, his "Merry Motorist's
Lament" in 1901 is aimed at the selfishness of those who resented the
claims of pedestrians, horses, children, dogs, etc., to the use of the
roads. Policemen were already employed to time the speed of motorists,
but no distinguishing numbers were yet carried. To 1902 belong the
first illustrations of the motor-bicycle and of "trailers" attached
to the "push-bike." Breakdowns and the wearisomeness of motoring
"shop" form the theme of verses in 1903. The adoption of the word
"chauffeur" is resented by _Punch_ on patriotic grounds; but while
suggesting various alternatives for the word "road-hog," which had now
come into use, he has no mercy for the nuisance which had called it
into being. When the speed limit was abolished in this year, _Punch_
vigorously opposed the concession, and in the text to his cartoon
suggests that the true remedy was to be found in limiting the power of
the engines. From this date onward the motor-car, being more or less
firmly established as an integral part of the locomotive system, passes
from the domain of the abnormal, and is superseded as a theme for
speculation and prophecy by the airship and the aeroplane.
_Punch's_ first picture of a flying machine in this period occurs in
the autumn of 1894. The mechanism is, however, purely fanciful, and
the design more remote from the actuality of 1908 than that which I
have reproduced in Vol. I., p. 73. The _Annual Register_ for 1900
records under date July 2 the flight of Count Zeppelin's airship from
Friedrichshafen to Immenstaad on the Lake of Constance--a distance of
three and a half miles. In the following year _Punch's_ "leaves from an
aeronaut's diary", though purely farcical, are yet of interest as the
earliest reference in his pages to flying in a "dirigible" as a _fait
accompli_. How modest _Punch's_ prophecies were in regard to speed
may be judged from his picture--at about the same date--of an aerial
"bobby" arresting people for flying at thirty miles an hour! The flying
motor-cab represented in 1902 belongs to the realm of uncircumstantial
imagination, but in 1906, though ballooning is still spoken of as
a fashionable amusement and is recommended, under the heading "If
Pigs had wings," to road-hogs in search of a new thrill, a note of
realism is struck by the use of the word "aeroplane" and reference to
the £10,000 prize offered for the first airship flight from London
to Manchester. The picture of aeroplanes at the close of this year
recalls the Japanese box-kite. _Punch_ was evidently a little lax in
his terminology. The balloon he commended to the "road-hog" probably
meant the airship, for he almost simultaneously speaks of the passing
of the old gas balloon, and when in 1907 _Punch_ published a design for
a new penny piece "in accordance with Britannia's aerial ambitions,"
Britannia is shown in mid-air in what is apparently the car of an
airship, certainly not the old "basket" of a balloon.
If _Punch_ failed in 1908--the _annus mirabilis_ of the Conquest of
the Air--to recognize the paramount claims of the Brothers Wright,
it must be borne in mind that the notorious aversion from publicity
shown by those pioneers, and the deliberate secrecy with which they
had conducted their experiments, kept them for a while out of the
limelight. Mr. Farman's exploits in the early months of 1908 are duly
celebrated in the cartoon in which Icarus, watching a biplane, says:
"Confound that fellow! I wish _I'd_ thought of that!" But though Mr.
Farman's efforts were completely eclipsed by those of Orville Wright in
America and Wilbur Wright at Le Mans in France, in September, October
and December, _Punch_ only gradually awoke to the fact. The reference
to Wilbur Wright on September 16 conveys no clear acknowledgment of his
achievement. He is, however, by implication promoted to importance
three weeks later when we read amongst various "Messages from the
Dead" the statement of Icarus: "The word aeroplane is a monstrosity
to Elysian ears, and the mere mention of W(ilbur) W(right) puts me in
a wax. Anyhow, no sea can be called after a man with such a name." An
allusion in the following week to Wilbur Wright's avoidance of the
"snap-shooter" helps to explain how it came about that he never figured
in a cartoon. M. Bleriot's first cross-Channel flight in 1909 made a
prodigious stir, and _Punch_ chronicled it in the figure of "Winged
Victory" landing on the cliffs at Dover.
[Illustration: "S.O.S."
PUNCH (to Mr. Marconi): "Many hearts bless you to-day, Sir.
The world's debt to you grows fast."]
Wireless telegraphy makes its _début_ in the pages of _Punch_ in
1894, when the verses "Hail, Columbia!" associate it with the name
of Nikola Tesla, the electrician, born on the borders of Austria and
Hungary, who migrated to the States in 1884. Five years later the
Fairy Electricity, armed with wireless, gives warning to submarine
cables and land telegraphs that she won't be able to keep them much
longer. _Punch_ was here a previous prophet; but he showed a decidedly
"intelligent anticipation" in his article on "Marconigrams" in January,
1902, where he predicted accurately enough some of the drawbacks
involved in the tapping of messages by "receivers" other than those for
which they were intended. The word "Marconigram"--in itself a tribute
to the predominance of Signor Marconi's "system"--was then brand-new.
_Punch's_ use of it antedates by a week the earliest reference quoted
in Murray.
The name of Marconi was for several years unfortunately mixed up with
a resounding politico-financial scandal, arising out of a traffic
in shares in which the inventor was never even remotely implicated.
_Punch_, therefore, had an extra reason for acknowledging his great
services to humanity in the "S.O.S." cartoon in October, 1913, when
a great disaster was averted by a wireless message from a liner in
distress.
[Sidenote: _The Submarine of Fancy and Fact_]
[Illustration: "ROUSSEAU'S DREAM"
NEPTUNE: "Look out, my dear--you're mistress _on_ the sea; but
there's a neighbour of yours that's trying to be mistress _under_ it."
BRITANNIA: "All right, Father Nep--I'm not asleep."
("M. Rousseau, the inventor of the submarine warship says that the
advantage of the submersible system would be incontestable, but that
certain problems have arisen of which the solution has not been
altogether realized.... The belief of M. Rousseau, however, is that the
type of the submersible is perfectible, and that the difficulties will
be overcome."--_Moniteur de la Flotte_, quoted in _The Times_.)]
Until the beginning of the new century _Punch's_ treatment of the
submarine was mainly fantastic with intermittent moments of misgiving.
The former mood prevails in his burlesque sequel to Jules Verne's
_Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_, printed in 1899, in which
Esterhazy and Du Paty de Clam (notorious personages in the Dreyfus
"affaire") are introduced along with "Captain Nemo." The submarine
was at the moment chiefly associated in the public mind with Jules
Verne's romance, and on that very account was perhaps treated less
seriously than it deserved. Jules Verne, as we now know, was aggrieved
that his countrymen did not recognize him as a scientific writer. But
French engineers and inventors were busy with the problem, and in
1900 M. Rousseau's "submersible" inspired _Punch_ with a cartoon in
which Neptune warns Britannia of the new menace to her rule, while
Britannia replies that she is not asleep. The heading "Rousseau's
Dream" certainly implies scepticism, but little more than a year later
_Punch_, in May, 1901, had come to recognize the grim actualities of
the new branch of the Navy:--
THE SONG OF THE SUB-MARINED
A life 'neath the ocean wave,
A home in the rolling deep,
That the billows never lave
Though the currents never sleep.
Where the whiting come and tap
On the porthole's misty pane,
And the congers bark and snap
In a dogfish-like refrain.
A life 'mid the flowing tide,
A home in the sunless sea,
In a ship with a porpoise hide
That ever concealed must be.
A perpetual game of nap
On the ocean's ill-made bed;
There one's feet get soft as pap
Where the sole alone may tread.
Oh, well for the collier lad
As he curses his garb of grime!
Oh, well for the man nigh mad
With the heat in a torrid clime!
O! well for the dark Lascar
In the sea of ice or snow!
But alas! without sun or moon or star,
For the mariner down below!
Sir Percy Scott's warning on the eve of the war of 1914, as I notice
elsewhere, was not taken seriously by _Punch_. To go back to 1901, it
was in that year that an acute controversy raged over the efficiency
of the "Belleville" tubular boilers, but _Punch_ contented himself with
merely registering the conflicting views of the experts.
[Illustration: A NEW STAR]
[Sidenote: _Röntgen Rays and Radium_]
The discovery of the Röntgen rays in 1896 and of radium in 1903 are
not absolutely neglected; but that is about all that can be said of
_Punch's_ frivolous comments on these momentous new-comers. On the
other hand, the possibilities and abuses of the cinematograph were
his constant preoccupation from 1896 onwards. _Punch_ attended an
exhibition given by a M. Trewey in that year, and, while making play
with the exhibitor's name, was sufficiently up-to-date to allude to
the "Pictures" and to foresee the inevitable abbreviation of their
classical title. In 1901, under the heading "What it must never
come to," _Punch_ only too correctly foreshadowed the vulgarity and
indecorum of the film play in later years.
Nearly half a century earlier _Punch_ had chronicled the flight of the
"Wild geese" to the gold diggings in California and Australia. Later
on South Africa had become the lure to all who suffered from the
_auri sacra fames_. In 1897 it was the turn of the New World again,
and Klondyke and the Yukon were words on every lip. The old story of
fortunes and failures was once more repeated, though not on so large
a scale, and _Punch_ summed up its lessons in his pessimistic picture
of exhausted diggers in Arctic surroundings lying at the feet of a
sinister skeleton figure guarding a great gold nugget.
In the domain of non-commercial exploration three phases are to be
noted: Nansen's "Farthest North" in the 'nineties, Peary's Conquest of
the North Pole in 1909, and the Antarctic tragedy of 1912. Nansen's
gallant effort was happily above criticism; and his fame, won in this
arduous field, has of late been enhanced by his disinterested and
humane persistence in the relief of the victims of the Great War.
Peary's triumph, though great and incontrovertible, was clouded at the
time by the extraordinary controversy which arose out of the rival
claim of another American explorer, Dr. Cook. His story, according to
which he had reached the Pole before Peary, was accepted at Copenhagen
and did not lack a certain amount of American backing. In his earliest
comments on the contradictory reports _Punch_ preserved an attitude of
judicious caution, tempered with ironic satisfaction that the rival
claimants were both Americans. But the publication of Dr. Cook's
narrative converted this suspense of judgment into incredulity and even
ridicule. The name of Dr. Cook's chief native witness, "Etukishook,"
was, to put it mildly, unfortunate. _Punch's_ final comment took the
form of a cartoon in which the American Eagle was shown sitting on the
top of the "Big Nail" and complacently remarking: "My Pole, anyway!"
[Sidenote: _The Antarctic Tragedy_]
From Dr. Cook's narrative to the journals of Captain Scott is a step
from the ridiculous to the sublime. Here, again, there had been
rivalry, but rivalry without dispute. The goal had been reached by
Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, only a few weeks before Scott
and his four companions, Captain Oates, Dr. Wilson, Lieutenant Bowers
and Petty Officer Evans--all of them "names to resound for ages." In
March, 1912, "Captain Scott and his gallant comrades reached the South
Pole and died on their homeward way." With this brief sentence _Punch_
prefaces his memorial verses on what was at once the most tragic and
heroic episode in all the long annals of Polar exploration:--
Not for the fame that crowns a gallant deed,
They fixed their fearless eyes on that far goal,
Steadfast of purpose, resolute at need
To give their lives for toll.
But in the service of their kind they fared,
To probe the secrets which the jealous Earth
Yields only as the prize of perils dared,
The wage of proven worth.
So on their record, writ for all to know--
The task achieved, the homeward way half-won--
Though cold they lie beneath their pall of snow,
Shines the eternal sun.
O hearts of metal pure as finest gold!
O great example, where our sons may trace,
Too proud for tears, their birthright from of old,
Heirs of the Island Race!
In this context I may note two great disasters, the one at the
beginning and the other at the end of this period, which served to
illustrate the "price of Admiralty" and the perils of speed when
combined with enormous size and structure of a type in which design
has outrun strength. The first was the loss of the _Victoria_ in
the manoeuvres off Tripoli in 1893, owing to an error in judgment
on the part of a great admiral--Sir George Tryon. The second was
the loss of the _Titanic_ in April, 1912. _Punch_ in both instances
confined himself to the expression of sympathy and condolence, without
endeavouring to draw morals or recalling, _à propos_ of the _Titanic_,
his curious prophecy, given in an earlier volume, of the likelihood of
just such a disaster resulting from the cult of speed at all costs and
in all weathers.
The perils of the sea naturally suggest the means of endeavouring to
avoid them. After a long interval the Channel Tunnel scheme was revived
in 1906, and in his cartoon in January, 1907, _Punch_ indicates that
it was calculated "a double debt to pay." Neptune is shown objecting
to have his power undermined, but Britannia retorts: "I want to see
more of my friends over there, and I never look my best when I've been
seasick." So again, in August, 1913, under the heading "The Entente
Tube," when the steward on a night Channel boat observes, "If they
bring in this 'ere tunnel, my job's gone," _Punch_ replies, "That's the
only sound objection I've heard yet."
[Illustration: THE ENTENTE TUBE
STEWARD (on night Channel boat): "If they bring in this 'ere
tunnel, my job's gone."
MR. PUNCH: "That's the only sound objection I've heard yet."]
[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S INVASION STORY
(Foreign Artillery Officer, after dropping shell from Dirigible with
the idea of destroying London): "Tut! Tut! I've missed it!"]
[Sidenote: _Punch's Prophecies_]
_Punch's_ forecasts and prophecies are mentioned under various
headings, but two may be specially noted here. In 1909 a foreign
officer (obviously a German) is depicted by Mr. George Morrow in the
car of an airship "after dropping a shell with the idea of destroying
London." "Tut! tut!" he observes, "I've missed it." The second
picture, in October, 1910, is of "The New Arm and how to use it," and
illustrates the conversion of a number of soldiers, by the device of
opening umbrellas of a peculiar pattern, into what the approaching
air-scout takes to be a field dotted with gigantic flowers. But, as
I showed in an earlier volume, _Punch_ described the principle of
_camouflage_ in full detail about half a century before it was carried
into practice.
CHANGING LONDON
[Sidenote: _Cabs v. Taxis_]
[Illustration: THE PASSING OF THE GROWLER
MR. PUNCH (supported by shades of two of his most famous
henchmen, John Leech and Charles Keene): "Good-bye, old friend. You've
been very useful to me, but your day is done."]
London underwent many notable changes, structural and otherwise,
between 1892 and 1914, but perhaps the most remarkable were brought
about by the engineer rather than by the architect. Macadam had yielded
to asphalt, and now asphalt largely gave place to the wood pavement.
Electric lighting became general, and with the "electrification" of
the old Underground a favourite source of well-founded complaint was
finally removed. But the conspicuous and outstanding feature of London
traffic in this period was the coming of the Tubes, while above ground
it was revolutionized by the motor, and the passing to a great extent
of horse-drawn vehicles. As early as 1902 Mr. Briton Rivière uttered
a lament over the disappearance of the horse from London traffic. His
point of view was quite intelligible, but it was purely artistic.
_Punch_ was a great lover of the "noble animal," but it was precisely
for that reason that he welcomed its release from the drudgery and
suffering, the maltreatment and overloading inseparable from the old
order. The speeding-up of street traffic brought with it new perils
and noises, but it freed us from many discomforts and nuisances--for
example, the "cab-runner," rampant in the middle 'nineties, who plagued
unprotected females by his extortions and insolence until the coming
of the taxi ran him off his legs. At the time of the South African
War, when _Punch_ noted the commandeering of 'bus horses for service
at the front, he declared that there had been hardly any improvement
in the public vehicles of London since the days of Shillibeer--the
coach-builder who introduced omnibuses to London in 1829. It is true
that the drivers were famous for their conversational powers, which
motor-bus drivers are unable to exercise owing to their isolation, but
only mediævalists can lament the passing of the old lumbering, stuffy
'bus, dimly lit by oil lamps, and in wet weather redolent of damp
straw. As for the "growler," _Punch_ was decidedly premature when in
1905, the centenary of the year in which public conveyances first plied
for hire in London, he assumed that its reign was over. In 1907 he paid
the "growler" the homage of a cartoon in which _Punch_, attended by the
shades of John Leech and Charles Keene, admitted that the "Cabby" had
been "very useful to him"--as a target for generally hostile criticism.
In spite of _Punch's_ repeated valedictions, the "growler" continued
to emerge during strikes in later years, and I am not certain whether
it can be pronounced to be dead even yet. In 1907, again, there is a
curious reference to the now largely disused practice of whistling for
cabs. An irritated hansom-cabby observes to a gentleman who has been
whistling for a "taximeter cab" for ten minutes--in series of three
whistles--"Try _four_ whistles, guv'nor, and p'r'aps you'll get an
airship." The whistling code had first of all to be revised so as to
establish the precedence of the "taxi," and then was simplified by the
disappearance of the "growler" and the hansom. In this context may be
quoted the epitaph based on the fact that a French traveller had taken
"Job Masters" to be a personal name, and published in 1909:--
His horses were old and his carriages were older,
But they were all we could get and we had to put up with them.
His watchwords were Livery and Bait, and he will be sadly missed.
His end was Petrol.
[Illustration: BOGEY OR BENEFACTOR?
L.C.C.: "Ha, ha! You must learn to love me!"]
[Illustration: NOTICE TO QUIT
THE FAIRY ELECTRA (to Steam Locomotive Underground Demon):
"Now they've seen me, I fancy _your_ days are numbered."
(Central London Electric Railway opened by H.R.H. the Prince of
Wales--Wednesday, June 27, 1900.)]
[Sidenote: _The L.C.C. Trams_]
On the vexed question of the extension of the tramway system to
central London _Punch_ did not maintain an inflexible consistency.
In 1905 he supported the L.C.C. in their effort to carry the tram
system across Westminster Bridge and along the Embankment, and when
their Bill, passed in the Commons, was thrown out by the Lords, he
showed Lord Halsbury, the leader of the Opposition on this occasion,
as an out-of-date Horatius, _Punch_ informing him that "this isn't
ancient Rome. This is modern London, and you've just got to move on."
Yet in 1907 the congestion of empty trams between Blackfriars and
Westminster Bridge moved him to ridicule the L.C.C.'s "Spectacular
Vacuum Embankment Trams," and to paint a fancy portrait of a grocer's
assistant who had actually succeeded in riding in one of them. Later
on, again, on the eve of the War, _Punch_ made it clear that he had
no sympathy with the L.C.C. in their obstinate preference for trams as
opposed to motor-buses. The L.C.C. tram was "beaten on points" by its
more flexible rival. "Hard lines on me," says the tram. "Yes," retorts
the motor-bus, "it's always hard lines with you, my boy. That's what's
the matter; you can't side-step."
But the coming of the new order in London locomotion dates
appropriately from the year 1900. Early in that year _Mr. Punch_
describes his experiences on a trip from the Monument to Stockwell in
what he calls the "Sardine-box railway," dwelling on the scrimmages of
passengers and the rocking of the trains, and endorsing the company's
advertisement that it was the "warmest line in London." Criticism
gives place to eulogy in the summer, when the fairy "Electra" gives
the Steam Locomotive Underground Demon notice to quit, and _Punch_
adopts the phrase, "The Twopenny Tube," from his lively but short-lived
contemporary the _Londoner_. "Horace in London" indites a "Carmen
Tubulare" in honour of the new Underground, and a burlesque article is
based on the notion that the ozone generated in the Tubes would lead
to a monstrous growth of appetite. The new and highly irregular verb,
"Tu be," is conjugated in all tenses and moods, beginning: "I tube,
thou payest tuppence; he Yerkes[6]; we get a hustle on; ye block the
gangways; they palm off 'bus tickets." Complaints of over-crowding
testified to the popularity of the new method of transit, and the
voice of the "strap-hanger" was soon loud in the land. The congestion
on the suburban railways had moved one of _Punch's_ bards to poetic
remonstrance as early as 1901:--
We wage no far-off conflict with Afridi or with Boer,
A present peril we must face, our foes are at the door;
Brave must he be of heart, and as a flint must set his face,
Who in the train at Finsbury Park would struggle for a place.
[Footnote 6: Charles Tyson Yerkes, the American financier who, after a
chequered early life, became a railway magnate and took a leading part
in organizing and financing the London electrical railways.]
[Illustration: "THEY ORDER THESE THINGS BETTER IN FRANCE"
FRENCH TOURIST (to Father Thames): "Dis, donc, mon vieux, when
does the next boat start on your beautiful river?"
FATHER THAMES: "It doesn't start. I ain't allowed to have any
boats."]
Six years later _Punch_ describes "rack-hanging" on the suburban lines
of the Great Eastern as one stage worse than "strap-hanging" on the
Underground. Another and more formidable outcome of the subterranean
extension of London traffic was noted in 1913 _à propos_ of the
cracks in St. Paul's. _Punch's_ Londoner exults complacently over the
impending downfall, so long as he is swiftly transported from his home
to his office:--
I thunder down to work each morn,
And some historic shrine
Must have its matchless fabric torn
To get me there at nine;
And when I gather up my traps,
As sundown sets me free
A nation's monuments collapse,
To take me home to tea.
To parody Lord John Manners's couplet:--
Let fanes and monuments in ruins lie,
But give us still our new Mobility.
While there was this feverish activity in developing surface and
subterranean communications on land, the apathy of the authorities in
failing to develop an efficient service of steamboats roused _Punch_
to repeated protests--notably in the cartoon where Father Thames
explains to a French visitor: "I ain't allowed to have any boats." In
more complacent mood, however, Father Thames ejaculates, "Well, I'm
blowed! This quite gets over me," as he surveys the opening in 1894
of the great Tower Bridge, or "the Giant Causeway," as _Punch_ calls
it. In 1896 _Punch_ was concerned with the intention of the L.C.C.
to do away with Chelsea Reach, and did not disguise his satisfaction
when the scheme was "turned down" by a Select Committee. On the other
hand, the unkempt and squalid condition of what he sarcastically calls
the "Surrey Riviera" suggested a cartoon in January, 1913, exhibiting
Father Thames in his filthiest guise saying plaintively, "I know a bank
where the foul slime flows."
[Sidenote: _London's New Cathedral_]
The most notable of the structural changes in London in this period
was the opening of the new thoroughfare from Holborn to the Strand and
the clearing away of the old rookeries at the southern end. Kingsway
and Aldwych were the names coined by Sir Laurence Gomme for the
thoroughfare and crescent, and could not have been improved on; but
_Punch_ exercised his ingenuity in offering a variety of suggestions
purporting to be made by famous and notorious personages of the hour:
e.g. "Via Marie," "John Lane," etc. Among single buildings the most
notable addition was the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Westminster,
consecrated in 1903. Bentley's masterpiece was the largest and most
impressive church erected in London since St. Paul's, which _Punch_, in
his irreverent "Lightning Guide" described as "London's largest temple
and the biggest Wren's nest ever known." The new internal decoration
executed in the early years of this century by the late Sir W. B.
Richmond prompted the remark that "the Christian law is upheld in the
nave, but the inside of the dome is strictly Mosaic." Mr. Hammerstein's
Opera House in Kingsway after a brief allegiance to the serious lyric
Muse went the way of other similar ventures. In the autumn of 1912
_Punch_ saw in the vacant theatre a chance for English opera, but his
cartoon, "Now or Never," was not exactly optimistic, and the claims of
Variety once more triumphed.
When improvements on a large scale are planned and executed it has
generally been found impossible to reconcile the demands of High Art
with the aims of municipal politics. The appeal of leading artists
and architects was powerless to prevent the spoiling of the eastward
vista along the chord of the Aldwych arc. So with the scheme of the
Victoria Memorial, involving the new road from Trafalgar Square to
Buckingham Palace. In the "Finishing Touch" _Punch_ represented the
County Councillor blandly correcting London's remonstrance with him
for blocking the view. Not a bit of it; he was only improving things:
"_ars est celare artem_, you know"--in reference to the action of the
"Improvements" Committee of the L.C.C. in allowing the prospect of the
Admiralty Arch to be obstructed by a building at the eastern end.
The French have a saying that administrative art is always arid;
_Punch_ went further and roundly accused the L.C.C. of Vandalism. In
their schemes for widening Piccadilly in 1901 he scented a sinister
design of converting it into a tramway route, just as he had
foreshadowed the conversion of Rotten Row into a bicycle track in
1895--this, by the way, at a time when bicycling in the Park was only
allowed from 10 A.M. till 12 noon. As a faithful champion of
the equestrian interest, _Punch_ renewed in 1894 the appeals he had
made in earlier years for making more rides in Hyde Park. He was much
concerned with the general dirt and disorder which reigned there--the
frowsy and immoral loungers, "socialist scamps and somnolent tramps,
scoundrels who swear and zealots who groan," and welcomed the new
rules in 1896 in the belief that they would exclude tub-thumpers,
Salvationists and atheists, "sot and satyr, crank and vandal." _Punch_,
in his zeal for maintaining the decencies and amenities of our parks,
laid himself open to the charge of an anti-democratic bias. He was,
however, sincerely proud of the glories of London, while always ready
to denounce the blots on her scutcheon. Sir W. B. Richmond's anti-smoke
crusade met with his approval in 1898. Writers who dilated on the fine
atmospheric effects of London fog jarred on his robust common sense,
but the beauties of Richmond Park in all seasons inspired him to
genuine enthusiasm. A lyrical "note" new to his columns is sounded in
the charming lines which he printed in 1910:--
Have you been to royal Richmond when the year is growing mellow,
And October, mild and fruitful, on its woodland sets her mark,
When the footpath--of her bounty--has a carpet red and yellow,
And the great harts roar a challenge as the twilight meets the dark,
And at half-past five or so,
There are lights that flash and glow,
Thrilling upward in the quiet out of Kingston down below?
[Illustration: "RICHARD THE THIRD" ADAPTED
LONDON SMOKE (tyrant and murderer): "Methinks there are two
Richmonds in the field."
(A Mr. Richmond writes to _The Times_ in support of the Anti-Smoke
campaign of Sir William B. Richmond, K.C.B., R.A. _Mr. Punch_ says,
heartily, "Let 'em _all_ come, and more power to their elbows!")]
[Sidenote: _The End of the Westminster Aquarium_]
I do not find that _Punch_ in his record of "disappearances" notes
the disuse of hatchments, but he duly chronicles at the close of 1895
the termination of the last of the old turnpike trusts on November
1. "Vanishing London" generally moved him to elegy. Over the Lowther
Arcade, which was closed in 1898 by the sale of the Crown lease, he
did not waste many tears, and the end of the Westminster Aquarium in
January, 1903, did not excite any passionate regret. Still, _Punch_ had
seen many strange shows and celebrities within its walls--Blondin,
Zazel and Zaeo, Slavin and Sullivan, Pongo the Ape, Sandow the strong
man, John Roberts the master of the cue; and a certain mitigated
melancholy broods over _Punch_ as we watch him
Muse over a pipe of the days that are dead,
Dream that once more I am able to scan
Closely the bird with the duplicate head,
Live once again with the Petrified Man.
It was another matter altogether when _Punch_ heard that Clifford's Inn
was to be pulled down in April of the same year. In his indignation he
suggests that the Temple Gardens, Middle Temple Hall and Temple Church
should forthwith be sacrificed to the craze for improvements, and
continues in the same strain of exaggerated irony:--
If you turn the Charterhouse into a railway station, the Tower into
warehouses and Westminster Hall into an Inebriates' Home, something
will have been done towards making London a happier and a better place.
Another sign of the times which frequently exercised _Punch's_ mind
and stimulated his satire was the multiplication of huge new hotels.
In 1902, when it was announced that St. James's Hall was about to
be pulled down to make room for another of these monsters, _Punch_
pictured Macaulay's New Zealander coming to visit London and finding
it entirely composed of hotels and residential flats. The luxury
_à l'Américaine_ of these mammoth establishments excited _Punch's_
strictures in 1907; simultaneously he inveighs against the poky and
insanitary arrangements of the modern flat.
In earlier years _Punch_ had been prodigal of suggestions for the
"improvement" of London; in this period he is more critical than
constructive, though I note that in 1904 he reverts to his old
suggestion of a great open-air _café_. This, he now proposed, should
occupy the ground floor of the Ritz, with a _terrasse_ overlooking
Piccadilly and the Green Park. But _Punch_ did not scorn the cheap
restaurants, and in one of his "Lays of a Londoner" pays homage to the
charms of Soho--a tribute culminating in this admirable stanza:--
Borne on the cosmopolitan breezes
Divinely blended odours trickle,
The louder forms of foreign cheeses
Contend against the home-made pickle.
[Sidenote: _Cromwell and Carlyle_]
[Illustration: (Sir William Bull, M.P., is anxious to form in the
metropolis a Society for Completing Modern Buildings. "Look," he says,
"at the Thames Embankment, with its pediments for sculpture, and not
one filled in, except the space which I got occupied by the Boadicea
group.")
It is hoped that Chelsea, with its Artists' Quarter, will take
advantage of the magnificent opportunity offered by the four chimneys
of the generating station. Why not an equestrian statue of Carlyle,
reading his own works?]
On the subject of statues and memorials _Punch_ had always held strong
views; views that by no means ministered to national self-satisfaction.
When the question of a statue to Cromwell came up once more in 1894,
_Punch_ practically repeated his old cut, with a slight variation
of treatment, in "Room for a Big One," Cromwell addressing his
Royal rivals, "Now then, your Majesties, I hope I don't intrude."
In May, 1895, _Punch_ returned to the charge in his most truculent
anti-monarchical vein:--
ON THE NEW STATUE
("Her Majesty's Government are about to entrust to one of our first
sculptors a great historical statue, which has too long been wanting to
the series of those who have governed England."--Lord Rosebery at the
Royal Academy Banquet.)
Our "Uncrowned King" at last to stand
'Midst the legitimate Lord's anointed?
How will they shrink, that sacred band,
Dismayed, disgusted, disappointed!
The _parvenu_ Protector thrust
Amidst the true Porphyrogeniti?
How will it stir right royal dust!
The mutton-eating King's amenity
Were hardly proof against this slur.
William the thief, Rufus the bully,
The traitor John, and James the cur--
Their royal purple how 'twill sully
To rub against the brewer's buff!
Harry, old Mother Church's glory,
Meet this Conventicler?--Enough!
The Butcher dimmed not England's story,
But rather brightened her renown
In camp and court, it must be said,
And if he did not win a crown,
At least he never _lost his head_!
_Punch's_ acid remark made many years before, that we were incapable
of producing a fine statue or memorial, is virtually repeated in his
suggestion, made in 1896, for the formation of a "Metropolitan Statues
Supply Association" for the purpose of supplying public statues and
monuments on the hire system. There was certainly good excuse for the
burlesque, for, as _Punch_ reminds us, "Mr. Akers-Douglas, replying to
Mr. Labouchere as to whether his attention had been called to a statue
'purporting to be of the late Mr. John Bright in the Central Lobby,'
and whether it is to remain there, said that it was erected under
arrangements made with his predecessors. He admitted that there were
very varied views as to its artistic merits."
[Sidenote: _National Heroes and their Memorials_]
In 1902 the fall of the Campanile of St. Mark's at Venice prompts
a Trafalgar Square Lion to remark: "I only wish some of our London
monuments would come down as easily." In an earlier volume I have
mentioned _Punch's_ reiterated complaints of the time taken in
completing the Nelson Memorial in Trafalgar Square. In 1903, after
fifty years had elapsed, the monument to the Duke of Wellington
in St. Paul's was still unfinished. _Punch_ dealt faithfully with
this discreditable delay in a caustic perversion of Tennyson's ode,
"Bury the Great Duke," and a cartoon in which, under the heading
"Ars (Britannica) Longa," Napoleon, hearing from his victor that his
monument is approaching completion, sarcastically comments, "Déjà?"
On the question of burials in Westminster Abbey, it may here be added,
_Punch_ was clearly not satisfied with the arrangement which left the
Dean as the chief arbiter, when he wrote in the summer of 1909:--
For whom shall England's high memorial fane
Offer a resting-place of hallowed stone
When they have nobly lived their destined span?
The nation speaks her choice, but speaks in vain;
The final verdict lies with one alone--
A Mr. Robinson, a clergyman.
The "Mr. Robinson," thus disparagingly referred to, was that learned
divine, Dean of Westminster from 1902 to 1911, and since then Dean
of Wells. It should therefore be remembered that he was Dean of
Westminster when Irving was buried in the Abbey.
[Illustration: DRIVER (approaching Hyde Park Corner and
pointing out the sights to country visitors): "On the left's the
statute erected to the memory of the great Dook o' Wellington, and that
'ere on the right's a statute erected to the memory of the pore ole
'oss-'buses wot's bin run orf the street by them stinkin' motors."]
[Sidenote: "_Our Robert_"]
Mention has already been made of the widening of the Mall as part of
the Queen Victoria Memorial. Brock's statue and monumental group were
pronounced by _Punch_ in 1911 "worthy of a great Queen and a great
City," an acknowledgment truly remarkable in one so chary of approval.
Captain Adrian Jones's Peace "Quadriga" on Constitution Hill prompted
a burlesque alternative design in 1908, with "four typical pedestrians
rampant and a motor-car urgent." In 1912 an old lady is seen asking
a policeman, "Is _that_ what they call the Quadruped, officer?"
and the obliging Robert replies, "Yes, Mum; all except the lady."
Towards "Robert," by the way, _Punch_ was in the main sympathetic and
appreciative throughout this period, and in one of the "Lays of a
Londoner" pays a generous tribute to the benevolent autocrat of the
highway:--
In vain the dray-horse paws the air,
The flow of low abuse grows brisker;
He never turns an injured hair,
Or lifts a deprecating whisker,
For he knows well enough that they
May gibe, but dare not disobey!
Whether in dark, secluded walks
He flouts the schemes that bad men work us;
Or maiden ladies, screaming "Lawks!"
Hang on his neck in Oxford Circus;
His mien displays an abstract calm
That soothes the fractured nerves like balm.
Who spoors the burglar's nimble feet,
And spots the three-card man's devices?
Who hales before the judgment seat
The vendor of unwholesome ices?
Who's apt at any time to have his
Complexion spoiled by hob-nailed navvies?
It is indeed our Robert, or,
As some prefer to say, our "Bobby";
The civil servant, paid to floor
The wiles of those who'd kill or rob 'ee;
Who keeps our premises secure,
Our butter and our morals pure.
And when we hear of fresh alarms,
Of bombs and mutiny and massacre,
Of citizens dispersed by arms,
In countries where such things, alas! occur,
Well may we urge our Robert's claim
Alike to gratitude and fame.
This is a fairly comprehensive summary of the multifarious activities
of one who is, or, at any rate, was up to the end of 1918, more of an
institution than a man.
Though he lived in or just off Fleet Street, _Punch_ kept an eye on the
growth of the charms of Greater London. In 1907 he printed his "Song of
Six Suburbs (after Mr. Rudyard Kipling)":--
BRIXTON
Though far outside the radius you roam,
Where shall a fairer prospect meet the eyes?
Brand-new, like Aphrodite from the foam,
The homes of Brixton Rise.
TOOTING
Supreme am I, Suburbia's guiding star,
And when I speak let lesser tongues be dumb;
The prefix "Upper" shows the class we are;
Where Tooting beckons, Come!
HAMPSTEAD
Upon your North-West Passage scale my heights,
And mark the joyous crowds that sport beneath;
Men call me "Happy": O the strange delights,
The dalliance on my Heath!
PECKHAM
A peaceful calm envelops every street,
And like an old-world idyll life drifts by;
Where else such courtly couples shall you meet
A-comin' thro' the Rye?
CLAPHAM
Unto my yoke my stalwarts meekly bend:
Daily, between the hours of 8 and 9,
To dare worse horrors than the Pit I send
Sons of the Chatham line!
EALING
"Last, loveliest, exquisite," I give to those
Civilian warriors from India rest;
What suburb boasts the dignified repose
That clings to Ealing, W.?
Later on the garden suburb is a frequent theme of genial comment and
satire based on first-hand observation, for the late Mr. F. H. Townsend
was a resident in Golder's Green, and his ingenious pencil found ample
scope in the amenities and humours of the new _Rus in Urbe_. Another
"garden" that had provoked _Punch_ to less favourable comment in
earlier years--Covent Garden--was still a source of dissatisfaction as
late as 1904. When John Hollingshead died in the autumn of that year,
_Punch_, in his obituary notice of the manager of the Gaiety Theatre,
revealed the fact that "his was the dauntless hand that, under _Mr.
Punch's_ banner, attacked 'Mud Salad Market' many years ago." If the
present condition of Covent Garden market is not exactly ideal, at any
rate it does not justify the censures passed on it seventeen years ago
as still blocking traffic with congested muck.
[Illustration: A LADY WITH A PAST
LONDON (in her new Museum at Kensington Palace): "Bless my
soul, what a life I've led!"]
In 1912 the London Museum was opened at Kensington Palace, and _Punch_,
in a commemorative cartoon, showed London as an old lady examining
the cases of the Roman, Saxon and Norman periods. "Bless my soul," she
says, "what a life I've led!" And _Punch_ was often more interested in
the life she had led than in that she was leading or was about to lead.
Her future, as outlined by Sir Aston Webb in January, 1914, seemed to
him a charming but somewhat visionary prospect:--
Meanwhile this London is my place;
Sad though her dirt, as I admit is,
I love the dear unconscious grace
That shines beneath her sooty face
Better than all your well-groomed cities.
PART II
SOCIAL LIFE IN TRANSITION
CROWN AND COURT
In a period of change and transition, in which the decline of the
influence of the old "governing classes" was attended by the rise of a
new type of statesman, the stability of the throne and the prestige of
the Sovereign remained unshaken; the veneration in which the old Queen
was held in the last ten years of her reign was based on a respect
which rendered her almost invulnerable to criticism. _Punch_, who in
earlier years had appropriated the _rôle_ and privileges of the Court
Jester, and in the middle Victorian period had frankly regretted the
Queen's long seclusion, never alludes to her in the closing years of
her reign save in a spirit of gratitude and chivalrous devotion. We
hear no more of the "Royal Recluse," for the phrase no longer applied
to one who in advanced years was strenuous in the discharge of her
duties. There is a pleasant story that when the Queen was informed that
she had reigned longer than any of her predecessors, she said: "Have I
done well?" and _Punch_ supplied the answer:--
"Have I done well?" Most gracious Queen,
Look on the record of your life;
Think of What is, What might have been.
Empress of Peace 'mid constant strife!
The last year of her reign was sadly clouded by the uncertainties of
the South African war, and she paid the inevitable penalty of those who
live to fourscore by surviving many of those who were nearest to her;
but age brought her consolations as well. The marriage of the Duke of
York in 1893 inspired _Punch_ with a genial ode, full of classical tags
and headed "Hymen Hymenæe!" He would not "trill a fulsome lay," but
contented himself with showing "good will to goodness," typified in his
cartoon of the royal pair seated on a Lion led by _Punch_ with a bridle
of roses. A year later the birth of the present Prince of Wales, Queen
Victoria's great-grandson, is celebrated by an ingenious adaptation of
Shakespeare:--
Now is the Winter of our discontent
Made glorious by this _Son_ of York.
[Illustration: A BORN LEGISLATOR
"Do you often attend the sittings in the House of Lords, Duke?"
"I did once--if I remember, to vote against some measure of Mr.
Gladstone's--but I caught a bad cold there, so I never went again!"]
The customary official congratulations of Parliament did not escape
a protest from Mr. Keir Hardie, who was "indisposed to associate
himself with any effort to do special honour to the Royal family,"
though he was "delighted to learn that the infant was a fairly healthy
one." This unfortunately-worded concession only served to exasperate
the loyalists, and _Punch_ drew a picture of Mr. Hardie, in his
deer-stalker cap, severely apostrophizing the royal infant in his
cradle. _A propos_ of the Prince's seven names, it may be added that
_Punch_ noted the inclusion of all the four patron saints of the United
Kingdom--George, Andrew, Patrick and David--a choice which, as he put
it, ought to help him to dodge ill luck in after years.
[Illustration: A YOUNG REPUBLICAN
LITTLE LORD CHARLES: "Oh, _I'm_ going to be an _Omnibus
Conductor_, when _I_ grow up."
FAIR AMERICAN: "But your brother's going to be a _Duke_, isn't
he?"
L. L. C.: "Ah, yes; but that's about all he's _fit_ for, you know!"]
[Sidenote: _Punch on the Duke of Cambridge_]
No charge of courtiership, however, could be brought against _Punch_
for his treatment of the question of the retirement of the Duke of
Cambridge in 1895 from the post of Commander-in-Chief. In "All the
Difference" Lord Wolseley is shown saying to the Duke: "In September
I have to retire from my appointment," and the Duke replies, "Dear
me! _I_ haven't." The same idea is developed in some satirical verses
glorifying the "Spirit of Eld," which was allowed to dominate the
conduct of high affairs of State. But when the Duke did go in November,
_Punch_ was more gracious. His "parting salute," put into the mouth of
Tommy Atkins, forms a friendly gloss on what Lord Wolseley had said
in his first Army order; and when the Duke died in 1904, _Punch's_
four-line tribute is a model of laconic and judicial appreciation:--
The years that saw old customs changed to new
Still left his spirit changeless to the end,
Who served his kindred's Throne a long life through
And died, as he had lived, the soldier's friend.
Modern Royal Annals are largely made up of "marriage and death and
division," and laureates, unofficial as well as official, are
largely concerned with the two former. The death of Prince Henry of
Battenberg from fever incurred while on active service in Ashanti in
1896 enabled _Punch_ to pay decorous and not extravagant homage to
the "servant of duty." He had a much better theme in the death of the
Prince's brilliant and ill-starred brother Alexander, in 1893, and the
verses are not unworthy of one who was too great a gentleman to be a
successful adventurer:--
Europe's Prince Charming, lion-like, born to dare,
Betrayed by the black treacherous Northern Bear!
Soldier successful vainly, patriot foiled,
Wooer discomfited, and hero spoiled!
Triumphant champion of Slivnitza's field,
To sordid treachery yet doomed to yield.
An age more chivalrous you should have seen,
When brutal brokers, and when bagmen keen
Shamed not the sword and blunted not the lance.
Then had you been true Hero of Romance.
The coronation of the Tsar Nicholas in 1896 is chronicled in the
cartoon in which Peace says to him: "I was your father's friend--let me
be yours," and his visit to Balmoral suggests another variation on the
same theme. Under the heading "Blessed are the Peacemakers," Nicholas
is seen taking an affectionate farewell of the Queen. Ten years
later _Punch_ was to realize how vain were the dreams of good will
when hampered by infirmity of purpose. For the moment, however, the
pleasures and pastimes of Royalty were more in evidence. The Prince of
Wales was alleged to have taken to bicycling, and _Punch_, still wedded
to an old habit, proposed the new title of "the Prince of Wheels." The
Prince is also congratulated on winning his first Derby with Persimmon,
and encouraged to pay no attention to the Nonconformist stalwarts of
Rochdale and Heywood who had begged him to abandon racing and withdraw
from the turf. When Princess Maud of Wales was married to Prince
Charles of Denmark, _Punch_ was not content with a loyal cartoon and a
suitable Shakespearean quotation. He seized the opportunity to combine
humanitarianism with allegiance to the throne by issuing a Plea for the
Birds to the Women of England--begging them to discontinue the wearing
of egret plumes on this and every other occasion.
[Sidenote: _Jubilee Tributes_]
Tributes to the Queen in the year of her Diamond Jubilee are
unqualified in their admiration. Perhaps the most hearty and
impressive, if not the most polished, is the "Song Imperial" printed in
June:--
Stand up England, land of toil and duty,
In your smoking cities, in your hamlets green;
Stand up England, land of love and beauty,
Stand up, shout out, God save the Queen!
Stand up Scotland, up Wales and Ireland,
Loyal to her royalty, crowd upon the scene;
Stand up, all of us, we who are the sire-land,
Stand up, shout out, God save the Queen!
Stand up ye Colonies, the joy-cry reaches you,
Near lands, far lands, lands that lie between;
Where the sun bronzes you, where the frost bleaches you,
Stand up, shout out, God save the Queen!
Stand up all! Yes, princes, nobles, peoples,
All the mighty Empire--mightier ne'er hath been;
Boom from your decks and towers, clang from all your steeples
God save Victoria, God save the Queen!
Why not? Has she not ever loved and served us,
Royal to us, loyal to us, gracious ever been?
Ne'er in peace betrayed us, ne'er in war unnerv'd us;
Up, then, shout out, God save the Queen!
But now our sun descends, from the zenith westward,
Westward and downward, of all mortals seen;
Yet may the long day lengthen, though the fall be rest-ward,
May we long together cry, God save the Queen!
When in the coming-time, 'neath the dim ocean line,
Our dear sun shall sink in the wave serene,
Tears will fill these eyes of mine, tears will fill those eyes of thine,
Lowly kneeling, all will pray, God save the Queen!
In his "Jubilee Celebrator's _Vade Mecum_" _Punch_ did not spare
criticism of the arrangements and the profiteering of speculators
in seats. Yet with all deductions and drawbacks the Jubilee "was a
gigantic success, for it has shown that a quarter of the world loves
and appreciates a blameless Queen, and rejoices to be her subjects."
The visit of the Duke and Duchess of York to Ireland in July prompts
the usual cartoon attributing to Erin the familiar suggestion of a
Royal residence in Ireland, a cure for discontent which _Punch_ was
never weary of prescribing. Queen Victoria's eightieth birthday fell in
1899, and in the same number in which _Punch_ welcomes the anniversary
he indulges in an unflattering pictorial comment on "Imperial Bruin"
breathing forth compliments and pacific professions while carrying on
dangerous intrigues in the Far East. Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught,
had renounced the succession to the Dukedom of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the
lifetime of his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, who had succeeded to
the title in 1893. _Punch_ in 1899 congratulated the Duke of Connaught
on a decision the wisdom of which was amply justified in the sequel.
Here _Punch_ made no claims to prophecy: he merely showed the Duke
of Connaught waving aside the proffered honour and gave as his motto
Gilbert's often-quoted lines:--
In spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman.
_Punch's_ lines on the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in the following
year attain to a positively "lapidary" excellence in their discretion
and brevity:--
Summoned to lordship in a stranger land,
He left his English birthright of the main,
Now, swiftly touched by Death's restoring hand,
He is the Queen's again.
The cartoon which linked Italy with Britannia as "Sisters in
Sorrow"--King Humbert had been assassinated two days before the death
of the Duke of Edinburgh--strikes the ceremonial and conventional note
avoided in the epitaph quoted above, and noticeable in the cartoon
prompted by the Queen's visit to Ireland earlier in the year.
[Illustration: THE MAGIC CARPET
(Wishing "Godspeed" to the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, who
are starting for Australia.)]
To 1900 also belongs the first appearance in a _Punch_ cartoon of the
ex-Crown Prince of Germany. In consonance with German Court tradition
he was now about to learn a trade, and as his tastes were said to lie
in the direction of typography, _Punch_ offers to take him on as a
printing apprentice.
I have spoken elsewhere of the death of Queen Victoria in 1901; for
it was a great deal more than an event in Court history; it marked
the end of an era. _Punch_, in a commemorative number, reprinted a
great many of his cartoons, good and bad, but omitting the disparaging
or satirical pictures to which reference has been made in previous
volumes; but even with this limitation, the collection is a valuable
contribution to the pictorial history of our times. In discussing the
National Memorial _Punch_ makes Art express the pious hope that London
will get something worthy of a great city and a great Queen, and, as
we have seen, in later years he acknowledged that she had done so. The
start of the Duke and Duchess of York for their visit to Australia
in March forms the theme of the pleasant fantasy reproduced on the
preceding page.
In August the Empress Frederick of Germany, the most highly placed,
the most gifted, and the most ill-starred of the Queen's daughters,
followed her mother to the grave. Here _Punch's_ tribute, in which
Germany and England figure as chief mourners, does not represent the
hard facts, and overlooks the bitter antagonism of Bismarck to "the
Liberal English woman," as he called her, her failure to inspire
affection in the German nation, and the estrangement of her meteoric
son. But _Punch's_ attitude was natural, for the Kaiser's visit to
Osborne during Queen Victoria's last illness had touched the heart
of England; and the description of the Empress Frederick as "gentle,
brave and wise" was a venial misreading of the character of one whose
fortitude, intrepidity and intellectual gifts were beyond question, but
whose individuality was too pronounced to accommodate itself to her
political surroundings.
[Illustration: FELICIDADES!
(After the well-known picture by Velazquez in the Museo del Prado,
Madrid. With _Mr. Punch's_ respectful congratulations to their
Majesties of Spain.)]
[Sidenote: _Coronation Humours_]
The preparations for the crowning of King Edward furnished _Punch_
with material for a display of abundant good will to the Sovereign,
tempered by an explosion of irresponsible frivolity. In the "Overflow
Fête," designed by _Punch_ as "Bouverie King of Arms," he seized
the opportunity of making game of all his favourite butts. A court
of "overflow claims" considers the applications of Lord Halsbury,
Sir J. Blundell Maple, Mr. Gibson Bowles, "Brer Fuchs" (Emil Fuchs,
an Austrian artist much in Court favour but heavily derided by art
critics), Mr. G. B. Shaw, Mr. Alfred Austin the Poet Laureate, and
many others. Most of their alleged claims are declined, but a few
exceptions are made, as, for example, that in favour of Mr. G. R.
Sims being allowed to supply the fountains in Trafalgar Square with
"Tatcho." A procession of emblematic cars is mainly satirical, and
includes a "sleeping car" typical of British industry. The programme of
the Gala Performance at the National Opera House introduces Dan Leno,
and includes a masque of "Poets in Hades" on the lines of the Frogs
of Aristophanes. _Punch_ also added what purported to be an Official
Coronation Ode by Mr. Alfred Austin--a masterpiece of deliberate
ineptitude--and a "Chantey of the Nations" in which Mr. Rudyard
Kipling's imperialism is burlesqued in none too friendly a spirit.
_Punch_ provided a jocular epilogue to the masque: he also dedicated a
set of serious verses to the King wishing him
health and years' increase,
Wisdom to keep his people's love,
And, other earthly gifts above,
The long-desired, the gift of Peace.
The King is also hailed in a hunting picture as the "King of
Sportsmen"; and the grace and kindliness of Queen Alexandra, now as
ever, appealed to _Punch's_ chivalry. The dominant "note" sounded in
_Punch's_ pages is one of jocularity and good humour. He reproduces
the statement that "no fewer than 1,047 poets have sent in Coronation
Odes for the prizes offered by _Good Words_"--no longer, it need
hardly be added, the _Good Words_ of Norman Macleod. American visitors
are maliciously pictured as attempting to buy coronets; and _Punch_
makes great play with the official announcement of the amount of space
allotted to peeresses in the Abbey. Duchesses were to have eighteen
inches and ladies of inferior rank sixteen; what was wanted, in
_Punch's_ phrase, was "A Contractor for the Aristocracy."
[Sidenote: _Death of King Edward_]
The sudden and dangerous illness of the King and the postponement of
the Coronation turned all this gaiety to gloom and suspense, happily
relieved by a recovery which gave the celebrations, when they were
held, the quality of a thanksgiving as well as of a great pageant.
In 1903 the King and Queen visited Ireland, and _Punch_ prefaced his
Donnybrook Fair rhymes--a long way after Thackeray--on their entry into
Dublin with the audacious but impenitent declaration that he intended
to adhere to a method of spelling which bore no sort of resemblance to
Irish pronunciation.
Of all the Royal visitors in the years before the war, none was more
popular or "had a better Press" than King Alfonso. In 1905 _Punch_
happily contrasted past and present in his cartoon of the Kings of
England and Spain in friendly converse, while in the background the
formidable shade of Queen Elizabeth remarks with more of amazement than
approval: "Odds my life! A King of Spain in England! And right cousinly
entreated withal!" King Alfonso's marriage in the following year to
Princess Ena of Battenberg is genially commemorated in Sambourne's
happy adaptation of Velazquez; and when the infant Prince of the
Asturias made his first visit to England, the same artist gave us the
wholly delightful picture of Prince Olaf of Denmark pushing the Spanish
princelet in his "pram": "Come along, old man," he says; "I'll show
you round. I've been here before." Spain was not a royal bed of roses,
but it was at least spared the upheaval which convulsed the adjoining
kingdom of Portugal. On the assassination of King Carlos and the Crown
Prince in 1908, Britannia in _Punch's_ cartoon bade King Manoel take
courage: when he was deposed by the Revolution of 1910, he appears as
a dignified figure mournfully bewailing the downfall of his House.
Simultaneously _Punch_ chronicles the saying attributed to the late
Mlle. Gaby Deslys: "I am not ashamed of having the friendship of young
King Manoel," and ironically describes it as "the humility of true
greatness."
King Edward was born in the same year in which _Punch_ first appeared,
and when he died in 1910 the commemorative number goes back to the
cartoon of "The First Tooth," published at a time when _Punch's_
comments on the Royal Nursery were more frank than decorous. But
whether as a small boy or an Oxford undergraduate, in America or India,
in illness or in health, as Prince or King, he had always found a
benevolent friend and lenient critic in _Punch_, who now saluted him in
death, in the name of Europe, as a Maker of Peace.
To the mass of obituary literature, mostly uncritical, which was
inspired by the passing of a great and popular personality _Punch_
contributed an interesting fact. There was nothing surprising in the
statement that King Edward never joined in debate in the House of
Lords; but it was curious to learn that he never voted--except for the
Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. The King's affection for his little dog
Cæsar was one of those personal traits which had moved the popular
sentiment, and _Punch_ was fortunate in having on his staff a writer
who was a poet as well as a lover of dogs:--
Reft of your master, little dog forlorn,
To one dear mistress you shall now be sworn,
And in her queenly service you shall dwell,
At rest with one who loved your master well.
And she, that gentle lady, shall control
The faithful Kingdom of a true dog's soul,
And for the past's dear sake shall still defend
Cæsar, the dead King's humble little friend.
Evidence of the unabated popularity of King Alfonso continue to appear
in 1910, when that sovereign's visit to the Duke of Westminster
prompted some frivolous rhymes on "the Merry Monarch":--
Oh, why does Eaton all her banners don so?
To feast the roving eyes of King Alfonso.
Why was it that the sun last Wednesday shone so?
It loved the polo feats of King Alfonso.
What spectacle delights the footman John so?
The riding-breeches worn by King Alfonso.
What is it fascinates the Eatonian bonne so?
It is the winning ways of King Alfonso.
What puffs the plumage of the ducal swans so?
The notice they receive from King Alfonso.
Why are the Kaiser's courtiers jumped upon so?
He's sick with jealousy of King Alfonso.
Why does the British Press keep on and on so?
It cannot have enough of King Alfonso.
[Sidenote: _Kaiser, King, and Laureate_]
The mention of the Kaiser is ominous. _Punch_ had, for reasons
mentioned above, given him a brief respite, but one of his periodical
outbursts at Königsberg in August, 1910, provoked a cartoon
representing the Imperial Eagle re-entering his cage "Constitution" to
the relief of his keeper, whom he reassures with the remark: "It's all
right: I'm going back of my own accord. But (_aside_) I got pretty near
the sky that time. Haven't had such a day out for two years." This was
not exactly respectful treatment, but it was not so frank as _Punch's_
heading "Thank Goodness!" prefixed ten years earlier to the statement
made, by an American paper, that in a Boston Lunatic Asylum there
were eleven patients, each of whom believed himself to be the German
Emperor, but that they had no means of communicating with the outer
world.
King George's coronation in 1911 gave _Punch_ another occasion for
mingling jest with earnest, loyalty to the Sovereign with chaff of
notorieties. The King's serious concern with his country's welfare had
already been illustrated in the cartoon in which he is seen, like his
namesake saint, attacking a dragon--that of "Apathy." At the time of
the coronation _Punch_ lays stress on the heritage of sea-power that
had fallen to him, a sailor prince. In July the Prince of Wales was
welcomed in his Principality--this time, in _Punch's_ picture, by a
dragon the reverse of apathetic.
In June, 1913, the office of Laureate fell vacant by the death of Mr.
Alfred Austin. After Southey, Wordsworth and Tennyson, the anti-climax
had been so painful that _Punch_ may well be excused for the cartoon
in which Pegasus appeals to Ringmaster Asquith to disestablish him:
the Steed of the Muses was tired of being harnessed to the Royal
Circus. There are some who think that, in the best interests of the
distinguished author who was appointed, it would have been well if
_Punch's_ advice had been followed.
VANITY FAIR
In the fifty years that had passed since _Punch's_ birth in 1841,
"Society," as it was then understood, had undergone a revolution which
not only changed its structure but altered the meaning of the word. It
had, in Mr. A. B. Walkley's phrase, become one of those "discoloured"
words like "respectable" and "genteel," in which the new "connotation"
strove with and gradually supplanted the old. "Society," in the old
limited sense, stood for a limited, exclusive and predominantly
aristocratic set, arrogant at times, but not wanting in a certain
self-respect. But by the 'nineties it had become amorphous, unwieldy,
cosmopolitan and plutocratic. Du Maurier, the finest and best equipped
of the commentators and critics of the old _régime_, who recognized
its distinction and its drawbacks, and satirized with impartial
ridicule decadent aristocrats and vulgar intruders, was perhaps _felix
opportunitate mortis_:--
He brought from two great lands the best of both
In one fine nature blent.
Lover of English strength and Gallic grace,
Of British beauty, or of soul or face,
Yet with that subtler something born of race
That charm to cleanness lent.
A Thackeray of the pencil! So men said.
His reverence high for the great Titan dead
Put by such praise with ease;
But social satire of the subtler sort
Was his, too. Not the shop, the slum, the court,
But gay saloons gave quarry for his sport.
'Twas in such scenes as these
His hectoring Midas, and his high-nosed earl,
His worldly matron, and his winsome girl,
Were found, and pictured clear,
With skill creative and with strength restrained.
They live, his butts, cold-hearted, shallow-brained.
In his own chosen walk Du Maurier reigned
Supreme, without a peer.
[Sidenote: _The Social Jungle_]
The tribute was fully earned; but Du Maurier was not one of those
who enjoyed plying the scourge, and he was fortunate in that he did
not live to see the "Gay Saloon" turned into the Social Jungle, as
foreshadowed in _Punch's_ adaptation of Mr. Kipling's poem in 1894,
which ends with the couplet:--
Because of his age and his cunning, his grip and
his power of jaw,
In all that the Law leaveth open the word of King
Mammon is Law.
For "Wolf" read "Worldling" for "Jungle" read "Social World" and
_Punch's_ parallel "Laws" work out well enough. But in the years that
followed it was not so much mammon-worship as the craze for excitement
at all costs that dominated the fashionable world. The vulgarity and
love of the limelight which Du Maurier had satirized were multiplied
tenfold. Society became a romp and a ramp. England began to go
dancing-mad in the 'nineties, but the harmless rowdiness of Kitchen
Lancers, of the "Barn-dance" and the "Washington Post" developed in
the new century into a mania for which historians found a parallel in
the "Tarantism" of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We passed
through various and mostly distressing phases of the malady from the
days of Loie Fuller's serpentine contortions to the introduction of the
"Salome" dance by Miss Maud Allan. Skirt-dancing, with a superabundance
of skirts, gradually gave place to a style marked by the desire to
dispense not only with skirts but with any sort of clothing. The
wonderful performances of the Russian Ballet revealed a new world of
art and "washed out" a good deal of highly advertised and indecorous
incompetence, but in many ways proved a doubtful boon. The cult of the
male dancer revived, and the triumphs of Pavlova and Karsavina lured
the aristocratic amateur into futile and unseemly competition. This
was only one of the many signs of the love of publicity which marked
Society when it had ceased to be select. In the 'forties, when the
_crême de la crême_ disported themselves at Cremorne, the Gardens
were reserved for their exclusive use. Now, "smartness" was the note
of Society, and "smartness" does not like to hide its light under a
bushel. In the middle 'nineties _Punch_ registered his protest against
ladies who begged publicly in the streets--the "merry half-sisters of
charity," as he called them. By 1903 he indicated the spread of the
new fashion in the ironical remark that "the eccentric habit of dining
at home is, I regret to say, steadily spreading." The further course
of this anti-domestic movement is correctly shown in the cartoon of
Christmas _à la mode_ in 1908, when the butler of a modern English
house inhospitably repels Father Christmas with: "Not at 'ome. Her
Ladyship is at Monty Carlo; the young gentlemen are in the Halps; and
Sir John has taken the other members of the family to the Restorong!"
_Punch_ was not content with attacking the organized publicity of
social life, with which may be connected his satire of the orgy of
Pageants; he was equally vigorous in chastising its organized frivolity
and horse-play; the extravagance of the week-end pleasure-hunt; the
ostentatious folly of freak entertainments; and other excesses and
eccentricities summed up in the two detestable phrases _fin de siècle_
and _de luxe_.
_Punch_ found no traces of a Golden Age in the 'nineties, though he
admitted they were Yellow enough. For these were the years of the
_Yellow Book_--alternately regarded as typical of _fin de siècle_
decadence (in _Punch's_ view) or as a symbol of literary renascence--of
the now forgotten "emancipation novel," _The Yellow Aster_; to say
nothing of the Yellow Peril and the Yellow Press. The _Daily Mail_,
by the way, was not founded till 1896. As a social satirist _Punch_,
throughout all this period, is much more concerned with the material
or physical than the mental or spiritual vagaries of the rich and
well-to-do. But a notable exception must be made in favour of that
famous--or shall I say notorious?--coterie known as "the Souls," who
are frequently referred to in 1893 and 1894. Readers anxious for
"inside" information may be recommended to consult the _Autobiography_
of Mrs. Asquith, who was one of the number.
[Illustration: KEEPING CHRISTMAS--OUT
BUTLER OF MODERN ENGLISH HOME: "Not at ome. Her Ladyship is
at Monty Carlo; the young gentlemen are in the Halps; and Sir John has
taken the other members of the family to the Restorong."]
[Illustration: MRS. MONTMORENCY-SMYTHE: "And what were you
reading when I came in, my dear? Shakespeare! Ah! What a wonderful man!
And to think that he wasn't exactly what one would call a gentleman."]
[Illustration: CULTURE BY THE SEA
"Have you Browning's works?" "No, Miss. They're too difficult. People
down here don't understand them." "Have you _Praed_?" "Prayed, Miss?
Oh, yes; we've tried that, but it's no use!"]
[Sidenote: _The "Souls"_]
They were most of them highly born and highly gifted. Some afterwards
attained eminence in politics and literature; and it must be admitted
that they were clever enough to get themselves a great deal talked
about without deliberately courting publicity at the time. Their
audacities and unconventionalities enjoyed a considerable reputation,
but did not often get into the papers. _Punch_ was obviously
"intrigued" about them, but ingeniously disguised his curiosity by
passing it on to an imaginary American visitor, "high-toned" (the word
"high-brow" was a later importation) and inquiring, who came over to
study our "Institootions"--Mr. Gladstone also used to pronounce it
that way--and wrote down his impressions for a work on _Social Dry Rot
in Europe_. So, hearing vague talk of a secret moral institution, the
Society of Souls, he set to work to collect authentic information about
them, but was everywhere baffled. The nearer he got to the shrine,
the more negative and mysterious was the information vouchsafed. But
the Philistine view is well burlesqued in his conversation with a
fashionable lady who described the Souls as "a horrid stuck-up set of
people who did all sorts of horrid things, all read the same books
at the same time, sacrificed wild asses at the altar of Ibsen, the
Hyperborean Apollo, and were bound by a rule that no Soul might ever
marry another Soul." A year or so later _Punch_ noted the report that
the Souls had ceased to exist, and would be replaced by a new club--the
"No Bodies"--of which the membership would be unlimited. Still the
Souls had had their day and, as representing an effort to establish an
exclusive social coterie to which intellect or wit formed the chief
passport, demand at least a passing word. The satire of fashionable
culture dies down and is never very seriously revived even in the
days when the late Emil Reich lectured on Plato at Claridge's. "Smart"
Society was more active with its heels than with its head or its heart.
_Punch_ distrusted the sincerity of fashionable ladies who professed
a desire to "elevate the masses" by organizing entertainments which
were a hotch-potch of Ibsen, skirt-dancing, exotic sentiment and frank
vulgarity. He waxes sarcastic, again, over charitable bazaars, run by
women who didn't enjoy them, for causes of which they knew nothing and
cared less. Frivolity was the thing that mattered. In the "Letters
to a Débutante" which appeared in 1894 _Punch_ assumes the _rôle_
of the cynical mentor, e.g. "It is hardly possible to exaggerate the
unimportance of nearly everything that happens": "Laugh when you're
thinking what to say. It saves time." In weighing the rival merits of a
group of suitors, the preference is given to the rich German-Jew. The
decay of ballroom manners was an old subject of complaint with _Punch_,
but it was never so persistently harped upon as during the years which
began with the Barn-dance and ended with the Bunny-hug. In 1894, _à
propos_ of the exuberant agility of a middle-aged Mænad, an old lady in
one of Du Maurier's pictures observes that the "Pas de Quatre" should
be "Pas du Tout" for Aunt Jane. The "Romping Lancers" are also noted,
and in "Association v. Rugby" a breathless young lady beseeches her
partner--a famous Rugby half-back--to dance "Soccer" for a little. In
1896, under the heading "The Death of the Dance," _Punch_ takes for
his text the remark of a speaker at a recent meeting of the British
Association of Teachers of Dancing: "I had rather be old and teach
deportment than be young and teach people to romp the Barn-dance"; and
he bewails the conversion of the once "light fantastic" into heavy
prancing, spasmodic antics, and the general decay of elegance and
grace. The arrival in 1897 of "The Washington Post" is greeted with
ironical approval: "You take hold of a girl by both hands, try a double
shuffle, and then slide off to another part of the room and repeat
the performance." In 1898 the lines on "The Lost Art" are based upon
the statement made by a provincial mayor that the risk of injury was
rather greater in the ballroom than in the football field:--
[Sidenote: _Ball-room Manners_]
Oh! for the days when there were dancers!
Oh! for the mazes of the Lancers!
With what a nimble step elastic
We tripped it on the light fantastic,
With a sweet charm which now is not,
Through gay cotillion or gavotte,
Or, with a grace more regal yet,
We stepped a stately minuet,
Each man of us a choice assortment
Of Turveydropian deportment.
But where is now your ancient pomp?
Your dance is but a vulgar romp,
Your shocking "Barns" and "Posts"--oh, fie!
You only think of kicking high.
The men career _sans_ time, _sans_ rhythm,
The girls rush helter-skelter with 'em,
They charge, they trample on one's toes,
Their elbows hit one on the nose,
They black one's eyes, still on they come,
They butt one in the back and stom--
I mean the waistcoat, till the hall
Is more like battlefield than ball.
I'd rather serve in the Soudan,
I'd rather fight at Omdurman,
I'd rather quarrel with a chum,
I'd rather face a Rugby scrum,
Nay, by the stars, I'd rather be
That hapless wretch, the referee,
Most desperate of men, than chance
My life and limbs at modern dance.
In 1906 the introduction of the "Boston" waltz prompts one of _Punch's_
artists to depict the sad experience of a young lady whose partners
had all learned the new dance from American instructors, and who all
danced it in a different way. The band, by the way, is playing "The
Blue Danube," for Johann Strauss was still a name to conjure with.
References to rowdy dancing are frequent in 1907, when _Punch_ printed
designs of various costumes to resist the tremendous wear-and-tear
of the ballroom, and in 1908, when he suggests, to meet a "long felt
want," that a special space should be railed off for "plungers."
_Punch's_ picture of the "Borston" as danced in 1909 belies the
ironical title "The Poetry of Motion." Long tight skirts were still
worn and are a feature of the series of suggestions, made in the same
year, by Mr. Baumer for brightening our ballrooms--the Judy-walk, the
Apache Polka, the Salome Lancers and the Vampire Valse. That same
acute observer of gilded (and painted) youth includes in his burlesque
Coronation Procession in 1911 a member of the aristocracy in the
guise of a caracoling Bacchante; and in the same year the male dancer
craze is satirized in a series of pictures showing the spread of the
infection to policemen, railway porters, scavengers, ticket collectors,
etc. The revival of old English dances dates from this period, but if
_Punch_ is to be trusted, made little impression on Mayfair. Even the
most distinguished and eminent politicians did not scorn the dance. Mr.
Balfour gave a ball at the height of the season in 1912, and _Punch_
(who was not there) gave the following wholly apocryphal description of
the revels:--
ARTHUR'S BALL
When Parliament, sick with unreason,
Was occupied, night after night,
With bandying charges of treason,
And challenging Ulster to fight,
To ease the political tension
Prince Arthur determined to call
A truce to this deadly dissension
By giving a Ball.
The guests were by no means confined to
The ranks of the old Upper Ten,
For Arthur has always inclined to
Consort with all manner of men;
So the brainy, though lacking in breeding,
Were bidden as well as the fops;
The foes of carnivorous feeding,
And lovers of chops.
There were golfers from Troon and Kilspindie
Discussing their favourite greens;
Bronzed soldiers from Quetta and Pindi;
Pale pilots of flying-machines;
There were débutantes visibly flustered,
Calm beauties from over the "Pond";
Sleek magnates of soap and of mustard,
And Brunner and Mond.
* * * * *
I saw a delectable Duchess
Sit out with a Syndicalist,
And a battle-scarred soldier on crutches
Hob-nob with a Pacificist;
And a famous professor of Psychics--
A Scot who was reared at Dunkeld--
Indulge in the highest of high kicks
I ever beheld.
Lord Haldane, whose massive proportions
Were gracefully garbed in a kilt,
Performed the most daring contortions
With true Caledonian lilt;
Lord Morley resembled a Gracchus;
Lloyd George was a genial Jack Cade,
And Elibank, beaming like Bacchus,
The revels surveyed.
The music was subtly compounded
Of melodies famous of yore,
And measures that richly abounded
In modern cacophonous lore;
There was Strauss, the adored of Vienna,
The genius of joyous unrest,
And Strauss, who the shrieks of Gehenna
Contrives to suggest.
I'd like to describe, but I canna,
The envy combined with dismay
Aroused by adorable Anna
Whom several Kingdoms obey.
Her entry produced quite a crisis--
Some prudes were surprised she was axed--
She appeared in the costume of Isis
According to Bakst.
It was four of the clock ere I quitted
These scenes of eclectic delight;
The fogies had most of them flitted,
The revels were still at their height;
For Garvin was dancing a Tango,
His head in the place of his legs;
And Spender a blameless fandango
Encircled by eggs.
What incidents happened thereafter
I only can dimly surmise:
But gusts of ecstatical laughter
Went echoing up to the skies;
And I know from my own observation
The guests were agreed, one and all,
That Arthur united the nation
By giving this Ball.
[Illustration: THE POETRY OF MOTION, 1909
The "Borston"]
[Illustration: HE: "Very interesting, these Morris-dances.
Have you ever seen any before?" SHE: "No. I don't even know
who Morris was."]
[Sidenote: _Tango-mania_]
The mention of Anna--the famous Pavlova--was at any rate topical,
for the cult of the Russian Ballet was now at its height, and in his
Almanack for 1913 _Punch_ exhibited the political and other public
celebrities of the hour engaged in appropriate evolutions _à la Russe_.
The "Bunny-hug" was very properly gibbeted in a scathing cartoon, and
in his hints to social climbers _Punch_ suggests various styles of
vulgar and inane dancing as a passport to notoriety. With laudable
fairness he admits, in parallel illustrations, that the Tango of fact
was a much less lurid thing than the Tango as painted by the fancy of
Puritans; but the revival of afternoon dances and the fashion of "Tango
teas" met with no approval, and in the cartoon "Exit Tango," early in
1914, _Punch_, rather prematurely perhaps, congratulated the "Spirit of
Dancing" on the passing of "the tyranny of the dullest of nightmares."
In one of the last of the references to the dancing craze in this
period--February, 1914, to be precise--_Punch_ notes, as one of the
reasons why the Tango was already _démodé_, the fact that matrons had
taken to it with the utmost fury, after a preliminary stage of acute
disapproval. In the words of one of the younger generation:--
Now we may watch our mothers, smiling and flushed and gay,
Doing it, doing it, doing it--tangoing night and day.
Stamping a Texas Tommy, wreathing a Grapevine Swirl,
Gleefully Gaby Gliding, young as the youngest girl.
We may not laugh at our mothers, for (between me and you)
They can out-dance us often--get all our partners too.
[Illustration: THE "BUNNY-HUG"
MODERN YOUTH (to Terpsichore): "My hug, I think." MR.
PUNCH: "My kick, I know!"]
[Sidenote: _Matron v. Maid_]
This, however, was no new thing. It was only the latest manifestation
of a "movement" which runs right through the social history of the
whole of this period, and which may be alternatively described as the
Emancipation or the Apotheosis of Middle Age. The earliest references
to the change link it up with the coming of the New Woman. For example,
in 1894, in a "Song of the Twentieth Century," _Punch_ describes the
man of the family as relegated to the shelf by his more energetic
female relatives:--
Aunt Jane is a popular preacher,
Aunt Susan a dealer in stocks,
While Father, the gentlest old creature,
Attends to the family socks.
But as time goes on it is in the pursuit of pleasure rather than in
the sphere of serious effort that the competition of the middle-aged
woman is noted as a new and formidable sign of the times. Thus in 1895
we have Du Maurier's picture of the Sunday caller finding that the
mother of the family is playing lawn tennis while the young ladies
have gone to church. By 1900 the youthfulness of the older generation
is made a source of complaint by the juniors. In "Filia Pulchra, Mater
Pulchrior," _Punch_ genially arraigns the mothers who "cut out" their
daughters. A paper for ladies had declared that the woman of forty was
most dangerous to the susceptible male, and _Punch_ enlarges on the
theme in "The Rivals," in which an eligible suitor exclaims, "Take, oh
take Mamma away!" In 1903 he recurs ironically to the subject in the
lines "De Senectute":--
However pedagogues may frown
And view such dicta with disfavour,
The folk who never sober down
Confer on life its saltiest savour.
The grandmother who wears a cap
Incurs her family's displeasure;
But if she sets a booby-trap
And wears a fringe, she is a treasure.
The old ideal of growing old gracefully had been superseded by a
refusal to grow old at all; and the "unfair competition" of matron
with maid is pointedly illustrated in _Punch's_ "Country House Hints"
in 1908, where, after giving information about tips, dresses, etc.,
the writer observes that girls are at a discount as guests: "they
are not rich enough for Bridge, and they put a restriction on funny
stories." They may have done so fourteen years ago; but only a year
later, in a burlesque article based on the fulsome Society paragraphs
of the contemporary Press, _Punch_ made it clear that the process of
emancipation was proceeding apace:--
Wise mothers--and modern mothers are seldom wanting in astuteness--do
not keep their young "flapper" daughters buried in the schoolroom
until the day of presentation. They prepare them for their complete
emancipation by a series of preliminary canters. Thus they take them
to dine at the Fitz or the Tarlton while the hair that is hanging down
their backs is still their own....
The upbringing of Lady Sarah Boodle has been wholly unconventional,
and as her parents spend most of their time in balloons, she is
looking forward to her first season with all the _fougue de dix-huit
ans_. Until she was sixteen Lady Sarah was allowed to read nothing but
the _Sporting Times_ and the _Statist_. This led, not unnaturally,
to a violent reaction, and Lady Sarah is now a devoted student
of Maeterlinck, Mr. W. B. Yeats and Fiona Macleod. Happily this
development has not impaired her healthy enjoyment of Bridge. Last
year she won £300 at this winsome pastime.... One may fitly conclude
this group of winsome English girls with the mention of two beautiful
cousins, Lady Phoebe Bunting and Miss Miriam Belshazzar. By an
extraordinary coincidence they are both third cousins once removed of
Daphne, Lady Saxthorpe, whose coster impersonations were so marked a
feature of her late husband's tenure of office as Governor of Hong
Kong. Lady Phoebe, strange to say, never learned her alphabet until
she was nearly fifteen, while her cousin had mastered the intricacies
of compound interest almost before she could walk. Lady Phoebe
is a winsome blonde, while Miss Belshazzar is a _svelte_ brunette
whose superb Semitic profile recalls the delicious proboscis of her
illustrious grandfather, Sir Joshua Schnabelheimer.
[Sidenote: _Ostentatious Luxury_]
Extravagant expense and ostentation--another old abomination of
_Punch's_--were not only rife, but they were constantly written up
and discussed with a foolish voice of praise in what purported to be
democratic papers. A ducal wedding in the mid-'nineties, which was
carefully "rehearsed" before it was actually solemnized, caused a
veritable explosion in _Punch_ about the columns of matrimonial gush
and statistics--the "haystacks of chrysanthemums"--which deluged the
papers. In the picture of coroneted sandwichmen engaged by adroit
speculators to puff their schemes, _Punch_ in 1897 was only repeating
an old indictment of parasitic peers. He had no quarrel with people
who took to trade openly and seriously, disregarding the old fine-drawn
social distinctions and contempt for commerce--witness his song of
"The English Gentleman of the Present Day" in 1899. But he had no
welcome for the newfangled newspaper articles on gastronomy, with
_menus_ and prices, puffing well-known hotels and restaurants. The
statement of a writer in _The Times_ in 1900 that "the necessaries of
life may be purchased for £2,000 a year" provided _Punch_ with food for
ironical comment. A year later it was seriously maintained in a popular
monthly that, from the point of view of a smart Society woman, it was
impossible to _dress_ on £1,000 a year. The standard of high living had
gone up by leaps and bounds from the days when to _Punch's_ youthful
fancy £1,000 a year represented wealth almost beyond the dreams of
avarice.
Another old grievance--needless extravagance in the Army--raised its
head in 1900, when a correspondent in _The Times_ complained that the
latest regulations issued by the War Office were like a tailor's list,
and contained details of seventy-seven kinds of gold lace! No wonder
was it, as _Punch_ noted, that the fathers of subalterns in crack
regiments had to guarantee them a minimum allowance of £600 a year.
This was just before the South African war, which immediately led to
a general rise of prices--the universal excuse "owing to the war"
foreshadowing what took place fifteen years later. Parallels abound,
though on a smaller scale. Marriage is ironically declared to be
impossible for self-respecting and self-protective girls owing to the
dearth of servants. "Like the Dodo, the domestic servant is extinct,"
and _Punch_, in his list of suggested exhibits for museums, includes
the following:--
_Domestic Servant_ (Mummy).--An extremely rare and finely preserved
specimen of a vanished class, whose extinction dates from 1901
A.D. It is therefore of the highest interest to the
Anthropologist and the Comparative Anatomist. Its duties are now
performed, perhaps more effectively, by the automatic "general" and
the electric dumb-waiter. When alive, it commanded the salary of a
prima donna, etc.
Aversion from work was already abroad. A fond parent is shown in this
year commenting on the recalcitrant attitude of her daughter: "No, she
won't work. She never would work. She never will work. There's only one
thing--she'll 'ave to go out to service."
Still "smart" Society went on its way unheeding. The increasing
publicity of social life is satirized under "Public Passion" in the
recital of a young wife who writes: "We are _never_ at home. I believe
it is fashionable to go to hospitals now and be ill amongst all sorts
and conditions of people." The honeymoon was passing because brides
could not face the awful loneliness of a _tête-à-tête_ existence, and
welcomed a speedy return to a semi-detached go-as-you-please existence
amongst their friends. A week-end honeymoon at Brighton is indicated
as the maximum period which could be endured by a modern couple.
In fashionable speech inanity began to be replaced by profanity.
Unbridled language on the part of aristocrats and smart people led
in 1903 to the famous conversational opening of a burlesque Society
novel: "'Hell!' said the Duchess, who had hitherto taken no part in
the conversation"[7]--which _Punch_ takes as his text for a discourse
upon further developments and reactions. The device of engineering and
paying for personal notices in the papers and simultaneously denouncing
the scandalous enterprise of pressmen, and the introduction of "freak"
parties from America are noticed and reproved in 1903, when amongst
other recreations of the Smart Set we read of "Shinty, a wild and
tumultuous version of hockey, in which there are absolutely no rules."
[Footnote 7: The author of this much-quoted phrase was said to
have been an Eton boy, but I have been unable to trace his name or
subsequent career.]
[Sidenote: _The New Mobility_]
At the beginning of this period bicycling was fashionable. The lines
"To Julia, Knight-errant" in 1895 refer in whimsical vein to the brief
vogue of bicycling parties by night in the City, organized by "smart"
people. Battersea Park was also frequented by fashionable riders; but
_Punch_, with a sure instinct, saw that the craze would not last,
and in the same year foreshadowed donkey-riding as the next modish
recreation. The advent of "mokestrians" was a mere piece of burlesque,
suggested perhaps by the popularity of the sentimental coster song
introduced by Mr. Albert Chevalier, but the speedy disestablishment of
the bicycle as a fashionable means of locomotion was correctly foretold
in one of the latest pictures from the pen of Du Maurier. Here one of
a group of fair bicyclists in the Park expresses her ardent desire for
the passing of a tyranny which she hated and only obeyed because it
was the fashion. Motoring was another matter, because it was expensive
and luxurious, and _Punch_, philosophizing in 1904 on the probable
results of a mode of motion which combined speed of transit with the
immobility of the passenger, predicted the advent of an obese and
voracious "motorocracy" with Gargantuan appetites and mediæval tastes.
In a "Ballade of Modern Conversation" which appeared in 1905, the three
outstanding topics are Bridge, motors and ailments, and about this time
_Punch_ printed a picture of a gentleman who, when asked what was his
favourite recreation, replied, "Indigestion."
[Illustration: ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE!
FUTURE DUKE: "What are you goin' to do this mornin' eh?"
FUTURE EARL: "Oh, I dunno. Rot about, I s'pose, as usual."
FUTURE DUKE: "Oh, but I say, that's so rotten."
FUTURE EARL: "Well, what else is there to do, you rotter?"]
The influence and example of American millionaires is a frequent
theme of satire. In 1904 _Punch_ had attacked their acquisitiveness
in a burlesque account of the contemplated "bodily removal of
certain European landscapes." In 1905 he dealt faithfully with a
famous "freak" dinner at the Savoy Hotel, costing £600 a head, when
the guests were entertained in a huge gondola and the courtyard was
flooded to represent a Venetian lagoon. The American "enfant terrible"
in 1907, frankly discussing her relations with her parents, supplies
an interesting comment on the complexities of divorce, as described a
few years earlier by the late Mr. Henry James in _What Maisie Knew_.
The unemployment and inefficiency of the Upper Classes were admirably
satirized in a set of Neo-Chaucerian verses, suggested by a society
chronicler who had anticipated a March of the Upper Class unemployed
to the East End. In 1906 the Pageant craze assumed formidable
dimensions, and the ubiquitous activities of Mr. Louis Napoleon Parker
as Pageant-master are duly if disrespectfully acknowledged. _Punch_
had never been enthusiastic about "dressing up"; it was, in his view,
foreign to the temper of the British and essentially one of the
things which they managed better abroad. Moreover, he regarded this
preoccupation with the past as an evasion of our responsibilities to
the future. This view is pointedly expressed in the cartoon "Living
on Reputation" in 1908, where Britannia (among the Pageants) remarks:
"Quite right of them to show pride in my past; but what worries me is
that nobody seems to take any interest in my future." "Smart" people
were furiously interested in the things of the present, and for the
most part in the things that did not matter. From 1906 right up to the
war no feature of the feverish pleasure-hunt indulged in by the idle
rich escaped the vigilant eye of "Blanche," whose "Letters," when all
allowance is made for a spice of exaggeration and for the wit which
the author perhaps too generously ascribes to her puppets, remain a
substantially faithful picture of the audacious frivolity, the inanity,
the rowdiness and the extravagance of England _de luxe_, unashamed of
its folly, yet, at its worst, never inhuman or even arrogant. I don't
think that any of "Blanche's" set would have quitted a shooting party
because he was asked to drink champagne out of a claret glass, as in
the picture of the young super-snob in 1908.
[Sidenote: _Paint and "Pekies"_]
[Illustration: THE CULT OF THE PEKY-PEKY
FIRST OWNER OF PRIZE DOGLET: "These seaside places don't
appeal to me the least little bit. But Ozoneville was recommended to
give tone to Choo-choo's nerves. He's been suffering from severe shock
through seeing two fearful mongrels have a fight in the park one day.
Your little thingy-thing's off colour too?"
SECOND OWNER OF PRIZE DOGLET: "Yes, a bit run down after the
season. Sorry, but I really must hurry away. Band's beginning to play
something of Balfe's, and I _never_ allow Ming-ming to hear banal
_démodé_ music."]
Horse-play as an integral part of the modern idea of pleasure is
satirized in 1910 in a series of suggestions for new "Side-shows"
at Exhibitions, which should combine the maximum amount of motion,
discomfort, and even danger to life and limb. The recrudescence of
"beauty doctors" is noted by "Blanche" in the same year, and the
increasing use of paint, not to repair the ravages of age, but to
lend additional lustre to the bloom of youth, is faithfully recorded
by _Punch's_ artists in the decade before the war. Bridge--to which
_Punch_ had paid a negative homage on the ground that it kept the
drawing-room ballad-monger and the parlour-tricksters at bay--had
ousted whist, and in 1913 was threatened by "Coon-Can." On the cult of
the "Peky-Peky" _Punch_ spoke with two voices, for while he deprecated
the infatuation of their owners, he was fully alive to the charm, the
intelligence, and the courage of these picturesque little Orientals.
Extravagance invariably leads to reaction; but in this period the
reactions were not always sincere--at least not among the "Smart Set."
They intermittently played at being serious, but the motive generally
savoured of materialism: they were more concerned with conserving
their bodies than with saving their souls. It was an age of new and
strange Diets and Cures and food-fads. _Punch's_ "Health Seeker's _Vade
Mecum_" in 1893 reflects modern pessimism and uncertainty. In 1904, in
"Our Doctors," he recalls Mr. Gladstone's tribute to Sir Andrew Clark,
but his appreciation and eulogy of medical worthies was a good deal
discounted by his linking the names of Jenner and Gull with those of
Morell Mackenzie and Robson Roose. Neurotics were now to be found in
unexpected quarters. In 1899 Phil May has a picture of an admiral kept
awake all night by a butterfly that went flopping about his room.
The movement for learning "First Aid" had already become
fashionable--and to that extent futile--and in 1901, in "Courtship
_à la_ Galton," _Punch_ mildly satirizes the creed of Eugenics, as
illustrated by the union of two Galtonites, despising sentiment, but
possessing diplomas of matrimonial fitness. Romance and Hygiene seldom
go hand-in-hand. The "Simple Life" was another favourite cult and
catchword; but its votaries were for the most part "affecting to seem
unaffected."
[Sidenote: _Smart Simplicity_]
American visitors flooded London for the Coronation of 1902, and
_Punch_ makes good play with a statement in a weekly review that "the
old-world simplicity of rural life is unique and has an unfailing charm
for our Transatlantic visitors." This was and is true of the best of
them, but _Punch_ turned the announcement to legitimate ridicule in
"Arcady, Ltd.," with its "faked" rusticity, carefully rehearsed and
organized to cater for the taste of wealthy explorers. The cry of "Back
to the Land" is illustrated in the futile efforts of fashionables
pretending to assist in the harvest field: it is ironically commended
in 1906 to exhausted _débutantes_ as the best form of cure for the
fatigues of the London season. The "Simple Life," as practised by
well-to-do dyspeptics and the unindustrious rich, was in his view a
complete fraud, for they were really preoccupied with the material side
of existence. Hence the adoption of weird unknown foods and clothing.
In 1910 "Blanche" gives us to understand that the craze for abstinence
had even invaded the "Smart Set":--
A good many people are going in for the No-food cult, the Dick
Flummerys among others. Indeed, dinners and suppers seem to be by
way of becoming extinct functions. Dick says that till you've been
without food for a week you don't know what you're really capable
of. I don't think that would be a very reassuring thing to hear from
anyone looking as wild and haggard as Dick does now, if one happened
to be _tête-à-tête_ with, him and some knives! Dotty tells me that,
with their tiny house and small means, they find entertaining much
easier now they belong to the No-food set. Their little rooms will
hold _twice_ as many no-fooders as ordinary people, she says, and then
there's no expense of feeding 'em. No, indeed. At the Flummerys', when
your partner asks, "What shall I get you?" he merely adds, "_Hot_ or
_cold_ water?"
In general, however, these rigours were confined to intellectual or
pseudo-intellectual coteries, of which a good representative is to be
found in the hatless and sandalled youth depicted in May, 1912--not
unnaturally classed as a tramp by the old Highland shepherd--who
evidently belongs to the type ingeniously described as that of the
"Herbaceous Boarder." In 1913, in "a chronicle of Cures, with the
Biography of a Survivor," _Punch_ briefly traces the progress of fads
in food, drink and hygiene in the past half-century. He begins with
light sherry, goes on with Gladstone claret, deviates into the water
cure, takes to whisky and soda, then to cocoa nibs, and winds up with
paraffin. Simultaneously and successively the survivor abandons "prime
cuts" for vegetarianism; relapses to carnivorous habits under the
auspices of Salisbury (the apostle of half-cooked beef and hot-water)
and Fletcher (who found salvation in chewing); then took to Plasmon
with Eustace Miles, lactobacilline in accordance with the prescription
of Metchnikoff, and finally developed into a full-blown disciple of
osteopathy. The list is not by any means complete, for no mention is
made of Dr. Haig or of China tea, or the uncooked vegetable cure. But
it will serve as a rough survey of the romance and reality of modern
dietetics.
When I said that smart people were more concerned with their bodies
than their souls, this must not be taken to imply a complete
disregard for the things of the spirit. We hear little in _Punch_ of
Spiritualism, but a certain amount about occultism. "Auras" and their
colours and meanings were attracting attention in 1903, and in 1906
the "mascot" craze had reached such a pitch that _Punch_ was moved to
intervene. If, he contends, we _must_ have mascots, they had better
be duly examined and licensed. The "Smart Set," again, always anxious
to advertise their worship of pleasure, were not immune from the
denunciations of popular preachers. The fiery fulminations of Father
Bernard Vaughan did not escape _Punch's_ amused notice. In 1907 the
results of this crusade are foreshadowed in a series of pictures in
which the "Smart Set" are exhibited as converts to decorum, simplicity
and sanity. They have taken to serious pursuits--part-singing and
photography. They frequent cheap restaurants and, as motorists, develop
an unfamiliar consideration for the foot passenger. The irony and
scepticism underlying these forecasts is further shown in the burlesque
"Wise Words on Wedlock" by "Father Vaughan Tupper," in the following
year--a string of extracts from his "great sermon," in which worldly
wisdom is mixed with sonorous platitudes.
[Sidenote: _Caste and "The Social Fetish"_]
While complaints of the decline of manners are constant, evidences
frequently recur of the worship of "good form" and the efforts made to
keep it up. In 1900 _Punch_ pillories an advertisement which offered
coaching to "strangers, colonials, Americans and foreigners on matters
of high English etiquette and fashion"; but in the same year it
requires a certain amount of reading between the lines to dissociate
_Punch_ from the sentiments expressed in the verses on Caste:--
"Kind hearts are more than coronets,"
I know this must of course be true;
It is the same old sun that sets
On high and low, that rises too.
What matters it for whom you buy
The ring of diamonds and pearls,
A maid whose birth is none too high,
Or daughter of a hundred earls?
If you're content that she should be--
Well, not exactly as you are,
The trifling difference in degree
May only very seldom jar.
Intolerance we should suppress,
An attribute of fools and churls,
Yet I prefer, I must confess,
The daughter of a hundred earls.
It may, perhaps, be fair to regard this as a piece of impersonation--a
point of view--rather than an editorial pronouncement. Anyhow,
_Punch_ was perfectly sound in his ridicule of the aristocratic
pseudo-Socialist who wished to have it both ways, and of the
gullibility or snobbery of reporters who ministered to her vanity.
Suburban pretensions to smartness are also chaffed in the picture of
the mother rebuking her daughter for relapsing to "Pa" and "Ma" instead
of calling her parents "Pater" and "Mater."
What _Punch_ could not stand, and to his credit never had stood, was
the inverted snobbery of those who professed to despise the privileges
and the shibboleths of rank, while all the time they took the utmost
pains to let you know that they belonged to the class which claimed
those privileges and that they were incapable of violating its
shibboleths. This old game, revived with considerable skill by Lady
Grove in her treatise on The Social Fetish, in which great stress is
laid on the test of pronunciation, was mercilessly exposed in its true
colours by _Punch_ in 1907. The article is an extremely workmanlike,
polite, but damaging criticism of an odious but ancient habit--that
of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Another old
custom--the mutual abuse in public of politicians who were bosom
friends in private--was revived with such gusto in these years as to
elicit _Punch's_ comment of "Pals before Party."
[Illustration: PALS BEFORE PARTY
M.P.'S WIFE: "I say, Archie, it's a shame to abuse poor Roddy
as you did in your speech last night. After all, he's your best pal,
although he _is_ on the other side."
M.P.: "My dear girl, that's nothing to what he's going to say about
me to-morrow. He's shown me his speech, and I'm jotting down a few
additional epithets for him to stick in."]
Though manners were in a state of flux, etiquette still survived.
The orthodox horror felt by the smart man about town at anyone of his
own class carrying a parcel in the streets was, if _Punch_ is to be
believed, still prevalent in 1908; the characteristic British avoidance
of sentiment is illustrated a year later in the salutation, "Hallo! old
man. How are you, and how are your people, and all that sort of silly
rot?" Characteristic, again, of British understatement is the reply
of a V.C. to the question, "Say, how did you get that el'gant little
cross?" put to him by a fair American: "Oh, I dunno. Pullin' some silly
rotter out of a hole." The change that had come over the relations
between Society and professional actors, musicians and authors is
shown in the picture of the long-haired genius who remarks, "And is
this the first time you've met me, Duchess?" The Duchess is reduced to
speechlessness, and takes refuge in a petrifying stare. That was in
1908, and the picture forms a good pendant to the affable Duchess of Du
Maurier, who in a similar position had remarked: "You must really get
someone to introduce you to me." Writing on the necessary attributes of
a Lion of the Season in 1899, _Punch_ placed an interesting personality
first: literary lions were no longer popular, as most people now wrote
books. Pursuing the inquiry farther, he gives special preference to
travellers and athletes:--
[Sidenote: _Social Lions_]
_Q._ Then what is the best mode of becoming a Lion?
_A._ By discovering a new continent or suffering imprisonment amongst
cannibals for five or six years.
_Q._ And what is the reward of such a time of misery?
_A._ A fortnight's _fêting_ in Belgravia and Mayfair.
_Q._ Is this sufficient?
_A._ More than enough. The fawning of Society begins to pall after a
week's experience of its cloying sweetness.
_Q._ Is there any celebrity other than literary or exploratory capable
of securing the attention of Mrs. Leo Hunter and her colleagues?
_A._ Prowess in the cricket field is a recognized path to social
success.
_Q._ And has not an amateur cricketer an advantage over other
competitors for fashionable fame?
_A._ Yes; he can claim his days for matches and his nights for rest.
_Q._ From the tone of your last answer it would seem that you do not
consider the lot of a Society Lion a happy one?
_A._ You are right; but the _fêted_ one has the satisfaction of
knowing that the fevered notoriety of a brief season is usually
followed by the restful obscurity of a long lifetime.
It is enough, by way of explanation, to add that when _Punch_ wrote,
the names of Mr. Walter Savage Landor and M. de Rougemont were on every
lip. Fifteen years later, actors, boxers and, above all, dancers, male
and female, were the favourite quarry of social lion-hunters. There was
nothing very new about this tendency: it was as old as ancient Athens
and had its roots in the everlasting human love of variety, in the
desire at all costs to escape from dullness and routine. In 1909 a girl
at Bristol who attempted to commit suicide received eighteen offers
of marriage, and the _Daily Chronicle_ reported that Mme. Steinheil,
on the mere suspicion of having murdered her husband, was receiving
similar proposals every day. This was at a time when, according to
the same journal, there were thousands of young women in Bristol with
certificates of competency as teachers, wives, and scholars, many of
whom could not find husbands. _Punch_ enlarges on this theme with
philosophical irony. Security and respectability were apt to be dreary
and monotonous, and it must at least be lively to be married to a
poisoner.
Turning back to the minor etiquette of Mode, we note that by 1903
evening dress was no longer insisted on in the more expensive seats
at the theatres, though in 1906 the _Lancet_ was alleged to have
recommended evening dress as indicative of "tone" and conducive to
hygiene. _Punch_ had long before declaimed against the tyranny of
paying "calls." In 1907 he alludes to the practice as obsolete, and
suggests that ladies, instead of having "At Home" days, should be out
on certain days, so as to give their friends a safe opportunity for
leaving cards.
_Punch_ had for many years ceased from criticizing the manners of
medical students, which occupied so much of his attention fifty years
earlier; the most serious of his comments on professional manners were
excited by "ragging" amongst officers in the Army. The protest, which
he printed in 1896, purported to come from the ranks, and is based on
the assumption that leadership was impaired when officers forgot to
be gentlemen. At the Universities, _Punch_ was evidently concerned by
the multiplication of prigs. Early in the new century Balliol was, as
usual, singled out as the principal hot-bed for the propagation of this
type, but _Punch_ paid that college a remarkable if reluctant tribute.
He enumerated all the different species of undergraduates to be found
there; keen laborious Scots, Ruskinite road-builders, and converts to
Buddhist, Gnostic and Agnostic theories; but admitted that if Balliol
contained all the cranks, it also contained the coming men--the men
who would count. That curious Balliol product which emerged about this
time, the "intellectual 'blood,'" seems to have escaped _Punch's_
notice. At the end of the last century he notes the invasion of schools
by the bicycle, and speculates fantastically on its results. As a
matter of fact, bikes were afterwards largely proscribed in public and
private schools, and the ban has not even yet been wholly removed.
[Illustration: ON THE RHINE
FIRST TOURIST: "Care to use these glasses?"
SECOND TOURIST: "No, thanks. Seen it all on the cinema 't
'ome!"]
[Sidenote: _An Appeal to Santa Claus_]
Fashion has many phases; and children's Christmas presents reflect
the popular tastes of the moment. In 1908 _Punch_ printed the appeal
of a little girl to Santa Claus to help her to avoid getting as many
as possible of the same presents. This last Christmas it had been
"perfectly absurd"--an endless iteration of _Peter Pan_ story books,
Golliwogs and copies of _Alice in Wonderland_, illustrated by Rackham
and other artists. The sacrilegious attempt to supersede Tenniel's
classical designs naturally met with no sympathy from _Punch_, and,
what is more to the point, did not prove a success.
Not a few of _Punch's_ old social butts and pet aversions disappear at
the end of the century--including the old "'Arry." One of 'Arry's last
efforts was to rejoice over the defeat of women at Oxford, and another
was to describe how he was teaching his "best girl" how to pedal. The
"Twelve Labours of 'Arry," as depicted by Phil May in the Almanack for
1896, in which he is seen on the rink, the river, hunting, shooting,
driving tandem, boxing, playing cricket, golfing, bicycling, etc.,
introduce a new type indistinguishable from the "new rich" in dress
and deportment. The new type of tourist depicted in 1912 lacks the
exuberance of the old, and his _nil admirari_ attitude is attributed to
the "educative" influence of the "pictures."
FASHION IN DRESS
From the very earliest times the evolution of dress has been governed
by two contending principles--Protection and Decoration; and the
student of "primitive culture" will find these principles asserting
themselves even in our own highly sophisticated times. One need not be
an expert in psycho-analysis to trace in modern fashions the survival
of the primitive instinct of decoration or the conflict between the
irrational and the rational selves which is writ large in the annals of
Mode. Profoundly conscious of my own incompetence to deal adequately
with this fascinating and momentous subject, I nevertheless venture to
submit that Laxity is the outstanding feature or "note" of the period
now under review. It is an ambiguous term, but none the less suitable
on that account, for laxity in its original sense implies a looseness
which conduces to comfort, while, in its later and ethical use, it
stands for irregularity, extravagance and eccentricity. Both meanings
are richly exemplified in the fashions which prevailed in the years
1892-1914; but it must be admitted that, on the score of a wise laxity,
man was more "rational" than woman in endeavouring to reconcile the
claims of comfort and adornment. Women's dress is far more various,
interesting, amusing and even exciting, but on the principle that one
should keep one's cake for the end, I prefer to begin with the mere
bread-and-butter of male costume. _Punch_, as my readers may remember,
had in his earlier days inveighed against the rigidity and discomfort
of men's dress, the tyranny of the top-hat and the strangulation of
tight-fitting collars. In middle age, we find him more of a stickler
for propriety of costume. Thus in 1893 he describes, with affected
amazement, the strange garb adopted by fashionable young men for
their morning exercise in the Park between nine and eleven--a straw
hat worn on the back of the head, an unbuttoned coat, no waistcoat
and flannel trousers. Simultaneously one of his artists depicts
the strange and casual attire of M.P.s in the House of Commons in
August--tweeds and knickerbockers, sombreros, caps, and even blazers.
Yet, with an inconsistency which did credit to his humane instincts,
_Punch_, at the close of the same year, assails the high stiff collar
worn by young men of fashion and refrains, in 1894, from any serious
comment on an article in the _Scotsman_ on the laxity of costume
characteristic of modern Oxford. "Straw hats and brown boots appear to
abound everywhere," while "bowlers" were gradually discarded. When the
centenary of the top-hat arrived in 1897, _Punch_ suggested that its
abolition would be a suitable way of celebrating the year of Jubilee.
But the "top-hat" had its defenders as well as detractors, and the
"pros" and "cons" of the correspondence in _The Times_ are admirably
summed up in _Punch's_ article:--
It would be advisable, or inadvisable, as the case may be, to abolish
It in the Jubilee Year.
Because all the scarecrows in the country are already fitted.
Because It is the hall-mark of human dignity, and, combined with a
smile, is sufficient by Itself, without any other costume, to stamp
the wearer as one of Nature's Noblemen, whether he be a Missing Link
or a King of the Cannibal Islands.
Because It is indispensable, as part of the stock-in-trade of
conjurers, for the production of live rabbits, pots of flowers,
interminable knotted handkerchiefs, and other useful and necessary
articles.
Because no Harrow boy is happy till he gets It.
Because It is a decided protection in a street fight, or when you fall
out hunting or coming home late from the Club.
Because It only needs to be carefully sat on to make an excellent and
noiseless substitute for the concertina.
Because no self-respecting Guy, Bridegroom, or 'Bus-driver is ever
seen without one.
Because It is a very effective counterpart of the Matinée hat at
Lord's, and similar gatherings.
Because, to be at all in the fashion, and to look decently dressed,
you require a fresh one every day. This is good for the trade.
Because It stimulates the manufacture of umbrellas, eye-glasses,
hansom-cabs, frock-coats, hair-restorers, and forcible language.
Because no one has yet ventured to wear It on the all-prevalent
bicycle.
Because no statue has ever had the face to sport It, with very few
deplorable exceptions.
Because It is really the most becoming headgear hitherto devised.
Because It is really the most unbecoming headgear hitherto devised.
Because, after a hundred years, it is time we had a change.
Because, when a thing has been running for a century, it is a pity to
abolish It.
Because, if It is abolished, the custom of raising It to ladies will
perish as well, and there will follow the Extinction of Manners
for Men, the Decadence of Church Parade, the General Cutting of
Acquaintances, the re-introduction of Thumb-biting, Nose-pulling,
Duelling, and Civil War, the disappearance of Great Britain as a
first-class Power, the establishment of a Reign of Terror, and much
inconvenience.
Because I have recently purchased an Extra Special Loyal and
Up-to-Date Jubilee Tile, which I hope to wave, throw up, and generally
smash and sacrifice on the Great Occasion.
But that is not another story.
[Sidenote: _Fashions in Hats_]
_Punch_ had already referred to Its disuse on the cricket field. The
mention of statues in top-hats is not an effort of imagination: Dr.
Grigor, to whom Nairn owes so much of its popularity as a health
resort, is thus attired in the stone effigy of him which stands in the
centre of the town. The tall hat, though now seldom seen except at
weddings and funerals, has survived its centenary; but new fashions in
headgear date from 1897, when _Punch's_ "Stifled Stockbroker" rejoices,
when the thermometer stood at ninety in the shade, in the relief
afforded by his Panama and Pyjamas.
The appearance of the Homburg Hat is chronicled in 1900, but not in
a complimentary manner. "Bertie's new hat," according to a satirical
young lady, "looks as though somebody had begun excavating to find his
brains, and had given it up in despair." There was another heat wave
this year, and _Punch_ notices that straw hats were worn at Sandown,
while the horses in Paris were "wearing straw bonnets to protect them
from the heat," a practice adopted in subsequent years in London. The
"boom" in sandals in 1901 belongs more to Hygiene than to Fashion, but,
if _Punch_ is to be believed, it was not confined to health cranks and
children; and in the Sapphic stanza of Canning's "Needy Knife-grinder"
he gives voice to the indignant protest of the London shoeblack.
Another sartorial centenary, that of trousers, fell in the year 1902,
but _Punch's_ appeal to the poets to celebrate it in song remained
unanswered. Meanwhile a young peer was credited by a society journal
with the intention of forming a League in order to differentiate men's
evening dress from that of a waiter, but _Punch_ failed to see in the
venture any sign of _noblesse oblige_. By 1902 the Panama Hat had been
vulgarized by 'Appy 'Arry; and a year later _Punch_ speaks of "the late
Panamania." It had gone out of fashion in New York, being superseded by
the ordinary stiff straw hat, and _Punch_ anticipated that the "slump"
would also cross the Atlantic.
[Illustration: FOND WIFE: "What do you think of Bertie's new
hat, dear?"
HER CANDID SISTER: "Well, dear, I think it looks as though
somebody had begun excavating to find his brains, and had given it up
in despair."]
[Sidenote: _Novelties v. Revivals_]
There is one grand distinction between men and women in regard to
dress. Women (or those who dictate their fashions) are divided between
novelties and revivals, and the revivals are generally of the most
outrageous absurdities. It is otherwise with the simple male. He deals
far less in revivals, and when he hits upon a good novelty he generally
sticks to it. In this category I would unhesitatingly include the brown
boot, to which _Punch_ devoted the following instructive article,
modelled on the style of the _Daily Mail_, in the year 1903:--
THE CULT OF THE BROWN BOOT
No serious student of dermatology can have avoided noticing the
enormous increase in the use of brown boots in the last quarter of a
century. In 1879 a clubman would no more have thought of walking down
Pall Mall in brown boots than of flying. But now even archdeacons
frequent the Athenæum Club in that ubiquitous footwear.
Necessity is probably the mother of invention, as Lord Avebury has
pointedly remarked, and the introduction of the brown boot is due,
according to a well-known Bond Street maker, to the exigencies
of a retired General, who, finding it difficult to get his boots
adequately blacked at his chambers, suggested, as a solution of his
embarrassment, that it might be possible to devise a form of boot
in which blacking could be entirely dispensed with. The example at
once provoked imitation, and now it is estimated by Dr. Nicholson
Roberts in the _Bootman_ that in London alone 1,250,000 pairs of
tawny-coloured footgear are sold in the year.
Boots, it may not be generally known, are made from the hides of
various animals, terrestrial and marine. The skin is removed after the
animal has been slaughtered, not before, and is then subjected to a
variety of preliminary processes of a mollifying character, of which
the most important is that of tanning. Tan, or tannin, as it is more
correctly called, is a substance of a friable texture and a highly
pronounced but hygienic odour. It is principally found in Indian
tea, whence it is extracted by machinery especially designed for the
purpose, and stored in tanyards. It is also occasionally used to
deaden the sound of traffic and provide equestrians with a substratum
calculated to minimize the wear and tear of their horses' hoofs. Dogs
of certain breeds are also technically described as being "black and
tan."
The process of bootmaking, of which the headquarters is at
Northampton, will be familiar to all who have attended the
performances of Wagner's opera _Die Meistersinger_. It involves
the use of powerful cutting instruments, cobbler's wax, needles,
thread, and other implements, and the principal terms in its somewhat
extensive terminology are vamp, welt, upper leathers, and nether sole.
Bootmakers, like tailors, commonly sit cross-legged at their work, and
hold pronounced political views; hence the term freebooter. But it has
been noted that the makers of brown boots incline to Liberal Unionism.
Their patron saint is Giordano Bruno, and in theology they affect
latitudinarianism.
The term "brown boots," it should also be noted, is a misnomer, as it
includes shades of yellow, orange, and russet. Army men affect the
latter, while stockbrokers and solicitors prefer the former.
In conclusion it may be worth while to record certain established
rules, the disregard of which may have untoward consequences. Black
laces do not harmonize well with brown boots, nor is it _de rigueur_
to wear them with a frock-coat, or when in evening or court dress.
[Illustration: THE SEX QUESTION
(A study in Bond Street)]
The information here imparted must be accepted with certain reserves,
and the same remark holds good of _Punch's_ picture of Church Parade
in 1906, where hatless "nuts" smoking pipes, wearing Panama hats,
knickerbockers and even dressing-gowns, are shown mingling with more
correctly attired pedestrians. But, allowing for exaggeration, the
picture reflects a real tendency--towards greater comfort and less
convention in dress. The "nut" depicted in 1907 wears a coat with
a pronounced waist, and highly coloured hose, but in 1910 _Punch_
descants lyrically on the announcement, made by the _Daily Express_,
that "the reign of the passionate sock is over," though a man might
"still let himself go in handkerchiefs." The poet ironically bewails
the fiat which dooms our socks henceforth to silence:--
There is a power, my friends,
That disciplines our loud-hued nether ends.
Still, he consoles himself with the reflection that he still can wear
his heart "up his sleeve," thus recalling the new definition of a
gentleman given some years earlier in suburban circles as one who wore
his handkerchief up his cuff.
[Illustration: HOST: "How do you like the course?"
VISITOR: "Well, I don't wish to appear ungrateful, but I
should like to lie down!"]
[Sidenote: _Passionate Socks and Knickerbockers_]
Owing to the increasing skimpiness of skirts and the cult of slimness,
the approximation of male and female attire reached a point in 1911
which suggested to one of _Punch's_ artists a new Sex Question puzzle.
But while the female "nut" was becoming indistinguishable from the
male, the male golfer had come to affect a bagginess of knickerbockers
recalling the exuberance of the female cyclist of two decades earlier,
and, as _Punch_ showed, exceedingly ill-suited for progress in a high
wind.
[Illustration:
AGAINST THE WIND WITH THE WIND
Disastrous influence of the sea-breezes on the modern "nut" coiffure.
Recently witnessed by our artist at a popular watering-place.]
Throughout this period whiskers remained in disfavour with all men of
fashion, though they lingered on among the elderly and the middle-aged.
Pianists, artists and literary geniuses still wore their hair long.
The value of a beard in correcting an imperfect profile was admirably
illustrated in Du Maurier's picture of the complacent Admiral in
1894, and naval officers, then and now, availed themselves of a
privilege denied to the other Service, without any loss of trimness
and smartness of appearance. The "toothbrush" moustache dates back to
pre-War days, and its popularity was not impaired when early in 1914
the General commanding the Prussian Guards Corps forbade its adoption
as "not consonant with the German national character." Waxed ends
to the moustache were now only worn by policemen, taxi-drivers and
Labour leaders. But the outstanding feature of male _coiffure_ during
the latter part of this period was the adoption of the practice of
liberally oiling or pomading the hair and brushing it right back over
the head without any parting. Whence the practice came I do not know,
but it became almost universal amongst "nuts," undergraduates and the
senior boys at our public schools. _Punch_ did not admire the fashion,
but it must have been a gold mine to all dealers in bear's grease,
brilliantine, Macassar's "incomparable oil," and all manner of unguents
simple or synthetic.
[Sidenote: _Revival of Crinoline Threatened_]
_Punch's_ chronicle of feminine fashion opens in 1893 with the menace
of a return of the crinoline, the bare mention of which was enough to
upset his equanimity, for his seven years' war against it had by his
own admission been more or less of a failure:--
CRINOLINE
Rumour whispers, so we glean
From the papers, there have been
Thoughts of bringing on the scene
This mad, monstrous, metal screen,
Hiding woman's graceful mien.
Better Jewish gaberdine
Than, thus swelled out, satin's sheen!
Vilest garment ever seen!
Form unknown in things terrene;
Even monsters pliocene
Were not so ill-shaped, I ween.
Women wearing this machine,
Were they fat or were they lean--
Small as Wordsworth's celandine,
Large as sail that's called lateen--
Simply swept the pavement clean:
Hapless man was crushed between
Flat as any tinned sardine.
Thing to rouse a Bishop's spleen,
Make a Canon or a Dean
Speak in language not serene.
We must all be very green,
And our senses not too keen,
If we can't say what we mean,
Write in paper, magazine,
Send petitions to the Queen,
Get the House to intervene.
Paris fashion's transmarine--
Let us stop by quarantine
Catastrophic Crinoline!
[Illustration: FASHION
"Oh, Mummy, have you been vaccinated on _both_ arms?"]
Du Maurier, in a picture which serves as a pendant to one which
appeared in November, 1857, contrasts the Misses Roundabout's inflated
circumference with the graceful lines of the normal skirt, but the
warning was happily unnecessary and the threatened danger never
materialized. Another revival, that of the "Coal-scuttle" bonnet,
was not nearly so formidable, but it enabled _Punch_ to indulge in a
characteristic gibe at the headgear of the "loud Salvation lasses."
The mania for expansion had ascended, and the fashion of large puffed
sleeves in the same year prompted the criticism of the little girl:
"Oh, Mummy, have you been vaccinated on _both_ arms?" For many years
huge hats continued to offend _Punch's_ sense of proportion. In 1893
he contrasts the small flat sailor-hat worn at the seaside with the
monstrosities in vogue in London, and in 1894 I note the first of
his many tirades against the "Matinée Hat." In the 'fifties _Punch_
had derided "Bloomerism"; now he was momentarily converted to the
introduction of "rational" dress for women cyclists. Thus in 1894 he
defended the innovation with pen and pencil against the protests of
Mrs. Grundy, that "great Goose Autocrat, the Palladium of Propriety,
the Ægis of social morality," and attacked her inconsistency in banning
knickerbockers while she acquiesced in audacious _décolletage_. The
lady in knickerbockers portrayed in 1895 is a distinctly attractive
figure though she owns that she had adopted them not to ride a
bicycle, but because she had got a sewing machine.
[Sidenote: _Matinée Hats and Russian Blouses_]
Hats and balloon sleeves occupy a good deal of notice in 1895 and 1896.
In an ingenious parody of Keats's "_La Belle Dame sans Merci_," _Punch_
denounces the use of "mixed plumes" in women's hats, and the poet is
left
alone and sadly loitering
While the sedge shakes not with the glancing plumes
And no birds sing.
The nuisance of the matinée hat had roused the ire of the male
playgoer. _Punch_ compared it to the Eiffel Tower and to a Tower of
Babel on top of a garden bed. The obstruction in Parliament was nothing
to it; and on reading that large theatre hats had been prohibited
in Ohio, he was ready to admit that here, at any rate, we might
Americanize our modes to good purpose. Floral decorations had reached
such a pitch of extravagance as to warrant the remark of the loafer to
a lady wearing a huge beflowered hat: "Want a _gardener_, Miss?" Signs
of sanity, however, were recognized in the announcement that Parisian
_couturières_ had issued a fiat against wasp waists, and were going to
take the Venus of Milo henceforth as their model, though _Punch_ was
rather sceptical of the results of this bold move, which in his view
would cause consternation in the ranks of the fashion-plate designers.
The Venus of Milo, by the way, has in 1922 been "turned down" by a
fashionable Chicago lady as utterly early Victorian.
Passing over the introduction of the "bolero" coat and the brief
revival of the early Victorian bonnet in 1897, we come in 1898 to one
of the first instances of the Russian invasion--the appearance of the
Russian blouse. _Punch_ describes it as the same back and front, with
a kind of ruff below the waist which sticks out stiffly all round. It
required four times as much stuff as was necessary, but provided room
to stow away a fair-sized sewing machine without detection. The "Medici
Collar," another novelty, or revival, of the year, is caricatured in
a picture which gives the impression of a "bearded lady"; while the
enormously lofty trimmings of hats are reported (on the authority of
the _Daily Telegraph_) to have obliged carriage-makers to lower the
seats of many closed vehicles. Knickerbockers had already gone out of
fashion, even for bicycling, and _Punch_ unchivalrously compares them
with the baggy nether-wear of Dutchmen.
Skirts were still worn tight but very long, so long that the shade
of Queen Bess is invoked to express her wonder how the modern woman
could walk at all, and _Punch_ suggests a new occupation for the
London street boys as trainbearers. In 1899 the new colour was "_rouge
automobile_," described as _très-chic_ or _teuf-teuf_--the Parisian
argot for the noisy motor of the hour.
The _Hairdresser_ announced that "this year hair is to be worn
green," but the statement appears to have been premature. _Punch_
again fulminates against the persistent Plumage Scandal--this time
in a picture of the "Extinction of Species," typified by a ferocious
fashion-plate lady with a plumed hat surrounded by plucked egrets.
_A propos_ of headgear, it may be added that in the Coronation year
of 1902 _Punch_ issued a Proclamation to all women not to wear large
hats at the ceremony and so cause annoyance, vexation, desperation
and profanity to sightseers. His Schedule comprises Gainsboroughs,
Bergères, Tricornes, Plateaux, Lady Blessington, Rustic, Picture and
Matinée hats--a tolerably comprehensive list.
From 1903 onwards large bag-shaped muffs came prominently into view,
and _Punch_ ungallantly emphasizes their value as a means of hiding
large hands. The outstanding feature of this and the next year is the
influence of motoring on dress. Here, according to _Punch_, decoration
was entirely sacrificed to comfort: the motorist swathed in furs is
compared to the bear, the mountain goat, the chimpanzee and the Skye
terrier. In 1904 he notes the universal adoption of the motor-cap, even
by those who never owned or rode in a motor-car. For the rest, the
"clinging style" of dress, with long skirts and long hanging sleeves,
was generally in vogue. Mrs. Roundabout fears that it would make her
look "so dreadfully emaciated," but rotundity of figure had ceased to
be the rule even with the middle-aged. Fashionable women, apart from
their motor costumes, continued to display their wonderful disregard
for the rigours of the climate, a trait which is faithfully dealt with
in _Punch's_ verses on the "Pneumonia Blouse."
[Sidenote: _Revival of the Directoire Style_]
By 1904 skirts were beginning to be appreciably shortened, but, as a
set-off, fashionable women indemnified themselves by the length and
expansiveness of their sleeves:--
Her sleeves are made in open bags
Like trousers in the Navy;
No more she sweeps the streets, but drags
Her sleeves across the gravy.
Elaborate bathing dresses, exhibiting a gradual tendency to reduce the
amount of material, are henceforth a frequent subject of illustration.
In 1905 _Punch's_ fair bathers remain on the shore and never enter
the water as it would absolutely spoil their dresses. We hear less of
the matinée hat, but the enormous _coiffures_ depicted in 1907 proved
hardly less objectionable to those who sat behind them; and as for
hats, the more grotesque and absurd they were the stronger was their
appeal. The new hats in 1907, with the brim large at the back, have a
sort of sou'-wester effect; and the towering monstrosities depicted at
the close of the year make "busbys" look small: Mars is eclipsed by
Venus. In 1908 _Punch_ chronicles the advent of the latest importation
from France, the revived "Directoire" costume as worn at Longchamps:--
Long languid lines unbroken by a frill,
Superfluous festoons reduced to nil,
A figure like a seal reared up on end
And poking forward with a studied bend;
A shortish neck imprisoned in a ruff,
Skin-fitting sleeves that show a stint of stuff,
A waist promoted halfway up the back,
And not a shred that's comfortably slack;
A multitude of buttons, row on row,
Not there for business--merely made for show;
A skirt whose meagre gores necessitate
The waddle of a Chinese lady's gait;
A "busby" toque extinguishing the hair,
As if a giant hand had crushed it there--
Behold the latest mode! and write beneath,
"A winter blossom bursting from its 'sheath.'"
[Illustration: A DECADE'S PROGRESS
I. Mrs. Browne, Mrs. Browne, junior, and Mrs. Browne, junior's little
girl, as they were in 1901, and--
II. As they are to-day.]
[Illustration: AS WE KNEW HER TEN YEARS AGO--AS WE MEET HER TO-DAY]
[Sidenote: _Fashion Plate Heroines_]
Miss Maud Allan had not yet been ousted from her eminence by the
Russian Ballet and by real dancing, and the repercussion of the cult of
the "all-but-altogether" on fashionable costume is well satirized by
_Punch_ in this year. By reducing materials to an irreducible minimum
this new mania, as _Punch_ logically argues, was likely to be ruinous
to trade as well as to railway porters and carriers, since large trunks
were no longer necessary and a whole wardrobe could be carried in a
handbag or suitcase. Another view of the situation is expressed in the
comment of the wife of the frugal Scot who had protested against the
idea of her taking to this "awfu' gear": "Hoots, mon! Dinna ye see
it's just made wi' aboot hauf the material." Conflicting tendencies
can always be simultaneously illustrated in the vagaries of feminine
fashion, for along with this alarming "skimpiness" went the cult of
huge fur head-dresses and muffs with animals' muzzles thereon. In the
lines quoted above the arrival of the "hobble" or "harem" skirt is
foreshadowed. In 1910 this strange Oriental monstrosity is ridiculed in
the picture of the girl hopping to catch her train, as running was out
of the question, and again in the comment of the navvy who feels that
_he_ is at last in the fashion with his knee-straps.
[Illustration: THE SPARTAN MOTHER]
[Sidenote: _The Perversities of Mode_]
The progress of fashion in the decade 1901-1911 is well illustrated in
the parallel groups given in the latter year and showing the change
from homely comfort to aggressive scantiness. Even better is the
admirable representation--it is hardly a caricature--of the old and new
types of fashion plate; the former insipid and simpering lay figures,
the latter sinister modern Messalinas. Beyond an increasing tendency
to extravagance and eccentricity and the general use of paint there is
little to note in the remaining years of this period. The brief reign
of the "pannier" skirt impelled _Punch_, under the heading of "Pockets
at last," to indicate how use might here be combined with so-called
ornament. The big-hat craze continued; the habit of poking the head
forward--noted in the verses on the "Directoire" style--became so
pronounced that "backbones were out of fashion" and an erect deportment
made a woman "look all wrong"; while the inconsistent perversity of
winter fashions is satirized in the lady with her bodice slit down
to the diaphragm walking with a gentleman in a heavy overcoat and a
thick muffler; and again in the "Spartan mother," swathed in furs,
accompanied by her hatless, bare-legged children. Lastly, on the
very eve of the War, _Punch_ gives a pictorial table of the relative
importance of the persons engaged in the production of a revue. The
costumier heads the list: at the other end are the composer and a group
of authors.
LETTERS AND JOURNALISM
In letters, as in life, the passing of "the old order" was already
apparent at the opening of the period under review in this volume. For
in 1892 the author of the lines immortally associated with the phrase
himself passed away, full of years and honours. _Punch_ had always been
a Tennysonian, even in the days when the Laureate was still looked upon
as an innovator. He had given Tennyson the hospitality of his columns
in 1846 to retort on Bulwer Lytton, who had attacked "School-miss
Alfred" in _The New Timon_. Finally, when Tennyson was laid to rest in
the Abbey, _Punch_ saluted him without reserve as the chief glory of
Victorian minstrelsy. The memorial verses are too long to quote, for
_Punch_ in his elegiac moods was still inclined to prolixity, but they
deal adequately with the spirit and influence, the consummate art,
and the fervent patriotism of one who, after various fluctuations of
prestige, is even now being re-discovered by Georgian critics.
The vacant laureateship was not filled till the close of 1895, when the
appointment of Mr. Alfred Austin by Lord Salisbury unloosed a flood
of ridicule. In the cartoon "Alfred the Little" _Punch_ depicted a
diminutive figure, standing on tip-toe, as he hangs his lyre on the
walls of the Temple of the Muses. The laurelled bust of Tennyson is
shown in the interior, while outside the figures of Sir Edwin Arnold
and Sir Lewis Morris are seen dissembling their disappointment. A few
weeks later the inclusion of the new Laureate amongst the celebrities
of Madame Tussaud's Exhibition prompted the malicious soliloquy of
"Alfred amongst the Immortals."
[Sidenote: _Swinburne and the British Academy_]
Mr. Austin's unfortunate efforts at the time of the Boer war did not
escape _Punch's_ derision, and when his name failed to appear in the
New Year's Honour List of 1901, _Punch_, in a sardonic parody, modelled
on the famous lyric in _Atalanta in Calydon_, represented Swinburne
ironically asking:--
Austin--what of the Knight,
Heavy with hope deferred?
When will he solace our sight,
Panoplied, plumed and spurred?
Swinburne and Meredith, two other "eminent Victorians," both died
in 1909. Towards them _Punch's_ attitude had undergone considerable
vicissitudes. Swinburne's erotic ballads had, as I have noticed in an
earlier volume, excited _Punch's_ vehement disapproval. Yet he paid
him the tribute of constant imitation and parody. When the proposal
for establishing a British Academy was brought forward in 1897,
_Punch_, who "crabbed" the scheme from the outset, was not content with
printing imaginary letters from various aspirants--Hall Caine, Miss
Marie Corelli, Grant Allen, William Watson, "Sarah Grand," and Clement
Scott--but made good play with Swinburne's publicly avowed disgust
at having his name associated with a "_colluvies litterarum_" and a
"ridiculous monster." The exclusion of pure or creative literature from
the British Academy, it may be added, prompted Sambourne's cartoon
in 1902 in which a sour-visaged lady in academical costume is seen
mounting the steps to the Academy, while three graceful figures--Drama,
Romance, and Poetry--are locked out on the other side of the railings.
To return to Swinburne, it should be noted that probably more poems
were written in the "Dolores" stanza throughout this period than in
any other metre. And when he died in 1909, _Punch_, granting him
full amnesty for his violence in controversy, his extravagance and
lawlessness of spirit, forgot the rebel and only remembered the
singer:--
What of the night? For now his day is done,
And he, the herald of the red sunrise,
Leaves us in shadow even as when the sun
Sinks from the sombre skies.
High peer of Shelley, with the chosen few
He shared the secrets of Apollo's lyre,
Nor less from Dionysian altars drew
The god's authentic fire.
Last of our land's great singers, dowered at birth
With music's passion, swift and sweet and strong,
Who taught in heavenly numbers, new to earth,
The wizardry of song--
His spirit, fashioned after Freedom's mould,
Impatient of the bonds that mortals bear,
Achieves a franchise large and uncontrolled,
Rapt through the void of air.
"What of the night?" For him no night can be;
The night is ours, left songless and forlorn;
Yet o'er the darkness, where he wanders free,
Behold, a star is born!
George Meredith was an old friend of _Punch's_ from the days when he
contributed to _Once a Week_, but he was not exempt from criticism on
that account, as I have already shown. In 1894 he was again burlesqued
in a parody of _Lord Ormont and his Aminta_, which ran through three
numbers and was decorated with a portrait of the author as a bull in
the china shop of syntax, grammar and form. _Punch_ in middle age
only dimly appreciated Meredith's genius, and was disconcerted by his
obscurity. _Punch_ erred in good company, for Tennyson is reported to
have said that "reading Meredith is like wading through glue"; but
sixteen years later the mists cleared away, and the verses of May,
1909, reveal insight as well as admiration:--
Masked in the beauty of the May-dawn's birth,
Death came and kissed the brow still nobly fair,
And hushed that heart of youth for which the earth
Still kept its morning air.
Long time initiate in her lovely lore,
Now is he one with Nature's woods and streams,
Whereof, a Paradisal robe, he wore
The visionary gleams.
* * * * *
When from his lips immortal music broke,
It was the myriad voice of vale and hill;
"The lark ascending" poured a song that woke
An echo sweeter still.
Yet most we mourn his loss as one who gave
The gift of laughter and the boon of tears,
Interpreter of life, its gay and grave,
Its human hopes and fears.
Seer of the soul of things, inspired to know
Man's heart and woman's, over all he threw
The spell of fancy's iridescent glow,
The sheen of sunlit dew.
And of the fellowship of that great Age
For whose return our eyes have waited long,
None left so rich a twofold heritage
Of high romance and song.
[Sidenote: "_Eminent Victorians_"]
Nor did _Punch_ allow the minor Victorian poets and authors to pass
without homage, witness his tributes to Coventry Patmore, the "poet
of Home and High Faith," and Jean Ingelow, whose _High Tide on the
Coast of Lincolnshire_ is one of the finest of modern ballads, besides
touching the high-water mark of her achievement. Professor Henry
Morley, who died in 1894, elicited the well-earned tribute, "He made
good letters cheap"; while the heroic industry and distinguished
talent of Mrs. Oliphant--for _The Beleaguered City_ comes very near to
greatness--are fittingly acknowledged in _Punch's "Vale!"_ in 1897.
Sir Theodore Martin, as the joint author of the immortal _Bon Gaultier
Ballads_, had a special claim to grateful remembrance from one who,
like him, had known Astley's Circus in the palmy days of Widdecomb and
Gomersal:--
Comrade of our "roaring 'forties," in your pages still
From the midmost fount of laughter may we drink our fill;
Watch you, Rabelais' disciple, sunshine in your eyes,
Shooting with an aim unerring folly as it flies.
_Punch's_ loyalty to Thomas Hood was testified in a long and perfectly
serious study, in three instalments, of Hood as a poet and satirist,
which appeared in 1896. In 1899 he was moved to sing the praises
of Marryat in the manner of Gilbert's _Captain Reece_; in 1900 he
reiterated his fealty to Walter Scott in verse as unimpeachable in
sentiment as it was undistinguished in execution. I think one may
safely say that nothing so inadequate to the occasion has since
appeared in the pages of _Punch_. But even when the literary quality
of _Punch_ was at its lowest he was capable of welcome surprises, as
for example in the really charming verses, in 1893, on Izaak Walton's
Tercentenary--verses based on intimate and affectionate study of _The
Compleat Angler_.
Another Tercentenary, that of Milton in 1908, prompted the cartoon
in which Shakespeare congratulates his brother poet because every
three hundred years they gave _him_ a banquet at the Mansion House,
while they only talked about a National Theatre for himself. A
Chicago professor had seized the occasion to observe that Milton,
if alive then, would be in favour of every advanced movement except
Woman's Suffrage, and _Punch_ turned the saying to good account in a
mock-heroic sonnet after Wordsworth. One might well have thought that
Charles Lamb's reputation was securely established by 1913, yet in that
year a member of the London Education Committee suggested that the
_Essays of Elia_ was hardly the kind of book to be put in the hands
of young women students. _Punch_ dealt judicially with the offender
in two letters--one from a prudish parent; the other from a humanist
and lover of Lamb who sends a copy of the incriminated volume to his
daughter, together with a report of the protest, and some comments on
the survival of Podsnap:--
He lives, he lives though sorely spent;
We shrug our shoulders, and lament
The tyranny not overpast
Of Philistine and agelast.
[Illustration: SHACON AND BAKESPEARE
HOMER: "Look here, what _does_ it matter which of you chaps
wrote the other fellow's books? Goodness only knows _how_ many wrote
mine!"
(_Nods, as usual, and exit._)
]
[Sidenote: _Shakespeare and Shaw_]
The last word has an academic ring, but _Punch_ was probably thinking
of George Meredith's use of it in a letter to _The Times_ in 1877
when he spoke of those "whom Rabelais would have called agelasts or
non-laughers."
A brilliant American essayist, Miss Agnes Repplier, has recently
remarked that the Twentieth Century does not "lean to extravagant
partialities" but rather to "disparagement, to searchlights, to that
lavish candour which no man's reputation can sustain." In the pastime
of hauling eminence down from its pinnacle she awards a pre-eminence
to British critics. It cannot be said that _Punch_ has taken an
active hand in this game. Even Shakespeare had not been exempt from
this "lavish candour." Mr. Bernard Shaw, writing in the _Saturday
Review_ in 1896, had said that "with the single exception of Homer,
there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can
despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare, when I measure my mind
against his." Whether he really meant what he said is a question
passing the wit of the plain person; but the utterance stung _Punch_
into a rejoinder in the form of an imaginary interview with "G. B.
S.," in which the criticism is further developed and obliquely
ridiculed. _Punch_ was equally sensitive where patronage of the bard
suggested self-advertisement, and in 1901, in the "New Genius of
Stratford-on-Avon," he expressed an ironical apprehension lest Miss
Corelli might oust Shakespeare as the tutelary deity of that town. The
Bacon-Shakespeare controversy was again becoming acute and claimed
_Punch's_ attention in 1902, when he published a cartoon bearing on
the issue, and followed it up with a happy burlesque. As he argued,
"If Bacon wrote Shakespeare's Plays, why, in the name of all that is
biliteral, should not Shakespeare have written Bacon's Essays?" Hence
the dissertation "Of Plays and their Authors," from which I may quote
the concluding passages:--
It may be said of such an one that he is a man unlettered, having
little Latin and of Greek no whit. How should he write plays? Whence
hath he lore of law and medicine, of history and science? But there
be handbooks. And a man may learn by enquiry of another, giving to
him the price of half-a-pint. So shall the dramatist acquire such
matters as be necessary, as the names of battles and of Kings and an
imperfect understanding of legal phrases. Moreover, where no copyright
is, he may steal freely from others, appropriating their plots and
embellishing them.... Lastly to conclude this part, he that writeth
dramas must endure with philosophy the investigations of talented
ladies. Being of humble estate he must not murmur should his works be
taken from him and given to a Lord Chancellor. Being himself sane he
must bear with the lunatick fancies of others. And though his words
be twisted into crazy anagrams, and his dramas be made a source of a
scandal about Queen Elizabeth, he must not complain. Generally let the
wise man ignore the bee that buzzeth in another's bonnet.
_Punch's_ "Essay" is not without relevance in its bearing on the recent
"invention" of that highly "talented lady" Miss Clemence Dane.
[Sidenote: _Punch on "R. L. S."_]
To repeat what I said in another volume, the highest qualities of
the literary critic are revealed, not in his loyalty to established
reputations so much as in his attitude to contemporary writers, in his
ability to gauge the durability of their merits, and to distinguish
a passing vogue from a sure title to remembrance. And there was
certainly no lack of material on which to exercise these faculties in
the 'nineties--romantic, realistic, and decadent. _Punch_ had already
welcomed Mr. Kipling and Sir James Barrie, and though his appreciation
of the former varied considerably in the next fifteen years, admiration
of his freshness and invention prevailed on the whole over distaste
for his excursions into politics, his addiction to technicalities,
slang and obscurity. The literary criticism of _Punch_ was probably
at its lowest ebb in 1893, when a review of Stevenson's _Catriona_
is bracketed with a notice of Miss Corelli's _Barabbas_. Punch deals
faithfully with the method of handling Holy Writ adopted in _Barabbas_,
but contents himself with recommending _Catriona_ to those who love
Scots dialect, which he frankly confesses he does not.
When Stevenson died in his early prime in 1894, a very different temper
inspired _Punch's_ tribute to the Great Romancer:--
The lighthouse-builder raised no light
That shall outshine the flame
Of genius in its mellowest might,
That beacons him to fame.
And Pala's peak shall do yet more
Than the great light at Skerryvore
To magnify his name,
Who mourned, when stricken flesh would tire,
That he was weaker than his sire.
Teller of Tales! Of tales so told
That all the world must list:
Story sheer witchery, style pure gold,
Yet with that tricksy twist
Of Puck-like mockery which betrays
The wanderer in this world's mad maze,
Not blindly optimist,
Who wooes Romance, yet sadly knows
That Life's sole growth is not the Rose.
So when in 1901 the late Mr. W. E. Henley published his famous
disparagement of the official life of Stevenson, _Punch_, in an address
to the "Beloved Shade" of R. L. S., uttered an indignant protest
against the attack on his memory.
_Punch_ enthusiastically greeted the Ruritanian romances of "Anthony
Hope" as an antidote to the ultra-realistic novel, and Mr. Kipling's
_Jungle Book_ was welcomed in 1894 with a salvo of puns on the
Kip-lingo of the Laureate of the Jingle-Jungle, the Bard of the
Bandar-log. In 1895 _The Men that Fought at Minden_ is described as
"perhaps the most coarse and unattractive specimen of verse that this
great young man has yet put forth--a jumble of words without a trace of
swing or music. All this Tommy Atkins business is about played out."
In 1898, in the series of "Letters to the Celebrated," "The Vagrant,"
while deprecating the "orgy of Imperialism" which Mr. Kipling had
helped to foster, frankly admitted that he was largely responsible
for "a quickened sense of the greatness of our mother-land, and a new
sympathy for those who fight our battles"; and predicted that his
greatest and most enduring title to fame would rest on his verse. In
1899 Mr. Kipling is rebuked for his glorification of machinery--he is
called "the Polytechnic Poet"--slang and militarism, while the parody
of _Stalky and Co._ is distinctly hostile to what Punch evidently
considered an ignoble travesty of Public School traditions. Punch had
himself repeatedly assailed the fetish-worship of Athletics, but Mr.
Kipling's _Island Race_--with its bitter reference to those who
contented their souls
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at
the goals--
was more than he could endure. Accordingly his representative conducted
an imaginary interview with "The Director-General of the Empire," who
had added some fresh lines in violent and obscure abuse of rowing-men,
and who explained that he never played games himself, but "spent all
his spare time loafing and scoring off masters"--a further hit at
_Stalky_. This mood of resentment had entirely passed by 1907, when
_Punch_ depicted Mr. Kipling as "A Verry Parfit Nobel Knight"--on the
occasion of his being awarded the Nobel Prize--and in 1910 the perusal
of _Rewards and Fairies_ is compared to reading English history by the
light of a Will-o'-the-Wisp.
The reviewer notes defects in style and lucidity, but ends on a note of
whole-hearted admiration:--
When one considers the quality of Mr. Kipling's invention, the piety
of his patriotism, the freshness and vigour of his style, and his
astounding understanding of men and movements, why, one forgets all
about these little trifling defects and again murmurs, "Wizard."
[Sidenote: _The Yellow Book_]
To return to the early 'nineties, _Punch_ saw no virtue, artistic
or otherwise, in the movement towards unrestrained self-expression
in _belles lettres_ which had its outcome in the _Yellow Book_ and
the _Savoy_, its headquarters at "The Bodley Head," and whose chief
hierophants were the avowed disciples of Baudelaire and Verlaine. To
_Punch_ the movement was wholly decadent. In the verses "Tell it not in
Gath," in 1894, after denouncing "flowers of evil," and the practice of
delving in the drains and dustbins of humanity, the writer declares he
would far rather remain a Philistine than achieve enlightenment by such
unsavoury means. In the same vein he addresses "Any Boy-poet of the
Decadence":--
For your dull little vices we don't care a fig,
It is _this_ that we deeply deplore:
You were cast for a common or usual pig,
But you play the invincible bore.
As in his earlier tirades against the Æsthetes, _Punch_ confounded all
the contributors to the _Yellow Book_ and the _Savoy_ in one common
anathema. The former, with an illustration by "Daubaway Weirdsley," and
"Max" as "Max Mereboom," himself one of the finest literary parodists
of our time, is held up in 1895 to especial ridicule. The _Savoy_ in
1896 becomes "The Saveloy," with imaginary extracts and further attacks
on Max Mereboom, Simple Symons, and Weirdsley; while in the same year
in "The Chaunt of the Bodley Head" (after Praed's _Chaunt of the Brazen
Head_) the Savoy School is condemned for its mephitic atmosphere.
There was in the movement much deliberate eccentricity, much of the
cant of anti-cant, which clamoured for robust satire, but _Punch_ was
more happily inspired in his ridicule of the popular and society
novels of the time--in his parody of _Sherlock Holmes_, which was quite
good enough for the original, and of Dodo, in which the rowdiness and
pseudo-intellectuality of Mr. Benson's heroine are excellently hit
off. It opens well with "'Sling me over a two-eyed steak, Bill,'" said
Bobo." In the sequel the Marquis of Cokaleek, the noble unappreciated
husband, gets killed in the hunting field, but Bobo does not marry
Bill, her fancy man. She jilts him and "got herself married to an
Austrian Prince at half an hour's notice by the A. of C." _Punch_,
let it be recorded, was responsible for the often quoted saying which
appeared in 1894 that "the modern novel is a blend of the Erotic, the
Neurotic and the Tommyrotic."
_Esther Waters_, compared and contrasted with Hardy's _Tess_, is
pronounced in 1894 to be _not_ "_virginibus puerisque_," and a once
famous "emancipation novel," _The Yellow Aster_, by "Iota," long since
hopelessly out-distanced in the reaction against reticence, becomes
_The Yellow Plaster_, by "Iõpna," whose "She-notes" wild are amusingly
travestied in the same year. _The Yellow Aster_ and _Key-Notes_ were
pioneer efforts in the domain of the psychological novel, and the new
jargon is ridiculed in such burlesque phrases as "the woman's voice
came through the envelope of Margerine's subconsciousness, steely clear
as a cheese-cutter." The vogue of _The Green Carnation_, a _roman à
clef_ which created some stir at the same time, is attested in Du
Maurier's picture "How Opinion is Formed":--
HE: "Have you read that beastly book _The Mauve Peony_ by
Lady Middlesex?"
SHE: "Yes, I rather liked it."
HE: "So did I."
[Sidenote: _Unchristian Criticism of Hall Caine_]
Du Maurier's _Trilby_ was naturally treated with benevolence, though
_Punch_ regretted the theological interludes, but _The Sorrows of
Satan_ is rudely dismissed as "a farrago of balderdash and vanity"; the
egotism of the author and of Mr. Robert Buchanan in belabouring their
detractors is severely rebuked; and Mr. Hall Caine's _The Christian_
is recommended only as an absolute _pis aller_ if you hadn't even a
Bradshaw to read. This great work is also parodied as "The Heathen,"
with Alleluia Grouse and Luke Blizzard in the _rôles_ of Glory Quayle
and John Storm. There was still a spice of Bludyer in _Punch_, and on
occasion he could act on the advice of a famous editor, "Be kind, be
merciful, be gentle, but when you come across a silly fool, string him
up." In later years, as the literary quality of his reviews improved,
his clemency to the new-comers approached an uncritical tolerance.
The passing of the three-volume novel in 1894 is noted in a Ballade not
untinged with regret, to judge from the "Envoi":--
Prince, writers' rights--forgive the pun--
And readers' too forbid the blow;
Of triple pleasure there'll be none,
Three-volume novels are to go!
[Illustration: "The _Trilby_ mania grows apace. It has reached Peckham.
Aunt Maria went to the Fancy Dress Ball of the Peckham season as
_Trilby_ in her first costume."--_Extract from letter of Miss M. Br-wn
to Miss N. Sm-th_.]
The later manner of Henry James is rather infelicitously described in
1896 as "indifferent Trollopian and second-class Meredithian"; but
_Punch_ made no mistake in the following year over Mr. W. W. Jacobs, in
whose _Many Cargoes_--studies of those "who go down to the sea in ships
of moderate tonnage"--he found a new fount of joy.
_Punch's_ "literary recipes" place Romance first, then follow the
Society Novel (with thinly veiled portraits from life); the Detective
Story (Gaboriau and water); and the Religious Novel. The plague of
Reminiscences had moved _Punch_ to protest as early as 1893, when he
wrote:--
That Memory's the Mother of the Muses,
We're told. Alas! it must have been the Furies!
Mnemosyne her privilege abuses--
Nothing from her distorting glass secure is.
Life is a Sphinx; folk cannot solve her riddles,
So they've recourse to spiteful taradiddles,
Which they dub "Reminiscences." Kind fate,
From the Fool's Memory preserve the Great!
Another and a newer aversion was the parasitic patronage of FitzGerald
by inferior novelists and writers, which moved _Punch_ to include among
"the things that we are still waiting, and it seems, likely to wait
for--A Temporary Surcease from Omar Khayyám." This last-named nuisance
has ceased to be so vocal of late years, but the plague of "Diaritis"
is worse than ever. Mr. H. G. Wells appears on _Punch's_ horizon in
1898, but only as the weaver of circumstantial scientific romances, not
as the regulator of the Universe, and discoverer of new Heavens and
Hells. _The War of the Worlds_ is parodied in _The Martian_, but the
wonderland of science appealed less to _Punch_ than the dream-world of
"Lewis Carroll," whose death inspired a graceful tribute to author and
illustrator:--
Lover of children! Fellow-heir with those
Of whom the imperishable kingdom is!
Beyond all dreaming now your spirit knows
The unimagined mysteries.
Darkly as in a glass our faces look
To read ourselves, if so we may, aright;
You, like the maiden in your faërie book--
You step beyond and see the light!
The heart you wore beneath your pedant's cloak
Only to children's hearts you gave away;
Yet unaware in half the world you woke
The slumbering charm of childhood's day.
We older children, too, our loss lament,
We of the "Table Round," remembering well
How he, our comrade, with his pencil lent
Your fancy's speech a firmer spell.
Master of rare woodcraft, by sympathy's
Sure touch he caught your visionary gleams,
And made your fame, the dreamer's, one with his,
The wise interpreter of dreams.
Farewell! But near our hearts we have you yet,
Holding our heritage with loving hand,
Who may not follow where your feet are set
Upon the ways of Wonderland.
[Sidenote: _Magic, Megalomania, and Sham Culture_]
From this wonder world _Punch_ turned to "_le monde où l'on
s'affiche_" to castigate the methods of Mr. Hall Caine and Mr. Le
Gallienne--the Manx megalomaniac and the Author-Lecturer--and to
the realm of blameless banality ruled over by Sir John Lubbock. Sir
John's genius for truisms had been guyed in 1894; in 1900 he appears
in a special section of "The Book of Beauty" as the author of some
enchanting platitudes, e.g. "A man's work will often survive him.
Thus, Shakespeare and Watt are dead; but _Hamlet_ and the steam engine
survive."
This was the year of the appearance of Lady Randolph Churchill's
_Anglo-Saxon Review_, a sumptuous publication which for a brief period
revived the glories of the _Books of Beauty_ and _Keepsakes_, edited in
the 'thirties and 'forties of the last century by that "most gorgeous"
lady, the Countess of Blessington.
Pseudo-intellectuality was one of the social shams which _Punch_ loved
to pillory, and there is a good example in 1901 in the "Cultured
Conversation" of a lady who observes, "I'm _devoted_ to Rossetti--I
_delight_ in Shelley--and I simply _love_ Ella Wheeler Wilcox."
_Punch_ himself in the same year "delighted" quite sincerely in _Some
Experiences of an Irish R.M._, and "wept tears of laughter" over the
episode of "Lisheen Races." This was apparently his first introduction
to the work of those two wonderfully gifted Irish cousins, Violet
Martin and Edith Somerville, but only towards the end of their long and
fruitful collaboration did he recognize in them far higher qualities
than those of the mere mirth-provoker.
In 1903 he was destined to make acquaintance with one of the most
conspicuous representatives of the opposite tendency, Gorki, the
Russian novelist and playwright. In "The Lowest Depths" _Punch_
parodied the dreary, violent and brutal squalors of _The Lower Depths_,
and incidentally had a dig at the Stage Society for producing it.
It was in the same year that _Punch_ described the "new curse of
Caine"--"to be everlastingly coupled with the name of Miss Marie
Corelli"--and paid them both grateful homage as purveyors of "copy":--
From cutting continual capers
Ev'n Kaisers must sometimes refrain;
But _you're_ never out of the papers--
Corelli and Caine.
At the time of the Boer war poets had been vociferously active. By
1904 a "slump" had set in; and in an interview Mr. John Lane, of the
Bodley Head, had declared that verse had ceased to be remunerative.
Embroidering this text _Punch_ traced the cause to the material
self-indulgence of the public. People dined too well to want to read
rhymes, and poets wanted better pay:--
And this is why no bards occur.
None ever knows that aching void,
That hunger, prompting like a spur,
Which former genii enjoyed;
For all the poets dead and gone,
Whose Muse contrived to melt the nation,
Habitually did it on
A regimen of strict starvation.
[Sidenote: _Notable Newcomers_]
But if verse was at a discount, new forms of prose were emerging, and
the spasmodic discourses of Mr. Bart Kennedy in the _Daily Mail_ moved
_Punch_ to parody what he considered to be a variant on Walt Whitman,
in which sentences were reduced to a minimum and verbs were dispensed
with altogether. Another new writer to whom _Punch_ now paid the homage
of parody was Mr. Chesterton, whose glittering paradoxes are travestied
in a mock eulogy of _Bradshaw_, in the manner of "G. K. C.'s" book
on Dickens. Bradshaw is praised for his splendid consistency, his
adherence to fact, his uniform excellence of style and freedom from
extraneous matter. Moreover, he is a great teacher:--
The last and deepest lesson of Bradshaw is that we must be in time. No
man can miss a train and miss a train only. He misses more than that.
A man who misses a train misses an opportunity. It is probably the
reason of the terrific worldly success of Cæsar and Charlemagne that
neither of them ever missed a train.
Reviews of books, chiefly novels, became a regular feature of each
week's issue in the latter half of this period, and it would be
impossible to deal fully with _Punch's_ critical activities. As an
example of the frank handling of a bad book it would be hard to improve
on the notice of a novel which appeared in 1906: "Anyone who wants to
read a vulgar book in praise of vicious vulgarians should read----,
by--------. All others are counselled to avoid it."
_Punch's_ later and more tolerant mood may be illustrated by his
notices of three typical novels by three representative novelists of
post-Victorian days. Mr. Wells's _Ann Veronica_ in 1908 is received
with guarded praise as that author's first real novel and "a remarkably
clever book about rather unpleasant people." In 1910 _Punch_ shies at
the excessive length and accumulated detail of Mr. Arnold Bennett's
_Clayhanger_, but admits that the author makes wonderful use of
unpromising material in his remarkable work. Thirdly, in 1913,
_Punch's_ reviewer proclaims himself a whole-hearted admirer of Mr.
Compton Mackenzie's _Sinister Street_, finding the hero "a figure to
love," and the whole book marked by passionate honesty, marvellously
minute observation, humour, and a haunting beauty of ideas and words.
In conclusion, he is "prepared to wager that Mr. Mackenzie's future is
bound up with what is most considerable in English fiction," adding,
"We shall see."
[Illustration: THE "SEXO-MANIA"
"We think _Lips that have Gone Astray_ the foulest novel that ever
yet defiled the English tongue; and that in absolute filth its Author
can give any modern French writer six and beat him hollow!"--_The
Parthenon._
FAIR AUTHOR (to her Publisher, pointing to above opinion of
the Press quoted in his advertisement of her novel): "And pray, Mr.
Shardson, what do you mean by inserting _this_ hideous notice?"
PUBLISHER: "My dear Miss Fitzmorse, you must remember that
we've paid you a large price for your book, and brought it out at great
expense--and we naturally wish to sell it!"]
These views are somewhat difficult to reconcile with those expressed
in other parts of the paper about the same time. An eminent conductor
and composer has recently stated that no noise which is deliberately
made can be said to be ugly--e.g. a railway whistle or a boy whistling
in the street. So in letters a similar creed had already come into
fashion--any subject was fit for treatment if it was "arresting" or
"elemental," a doctrine that _Punch_ outside his "Booking Office" found
it hard to swallow. In "The Qualities that Count" one of his writers
applied this principle to the poetry and letters of the hour:--
If you're anxious to acquire a reputation
For enlightened and emancipated views,
You must hold it as a duty to discard the cult of Beauty,
And discourage all endeavours to amuse.
You must back the man who, obloquy enduring,
Subconsciousness determines to express,
Who in short is "elemental," "unalluring,"
But "arresting" in his Art--or in his dress.
Or is your cup habitually brimming
With water from the Heliconian fount?
Then remember the hubristic, the profane, the pugilistic,
Are the only things in poetry that count.
So select a tragic argument, ensuring
The maximum expenditure of gore,
And the epithets "arresting," "unalluring,"
"Elemental" will re-echo as before.
But if your bent propels you into fiction,
You should clearly and completely understand
That your duty in a novel is not to soar, but grovel,
If you want it to be profitably banned.
So be lavish and effusive in suggesting
A malignant and mephitic atmosphere,
And you're sure to be applauded as "arresting,"
"Elemental," "unalluring," and "sincere."
[Sidenote: _Mr. Gosse and the Georgian Poets_]
In the same year Mr. Edmund Gosse had indulged in some caustic
criticism of the Poetry of the Future. Mr. Gosse had said that "the
natural uses of English and the obvious forms of our speech will be
driven from our poetry." Also that "verses of excellent quality in
this primitive manner can now be written by any smart little boy in a
grammar school." Hence a squib in which _Punch_ makes disrespectful
fun of "the Sainte-Beuve of the House of Lords," who, it may be added,
has since made his peace with the young lions whom he had treated
so disrespectfully. In 1913 the cult of Rabindranath Tagore had
become fashionable. Here was an Oriental poet who sedulously eschewed
the flamboyant exuberance of the westernized Indian, but _Punch_,
while finding him a less fruitful theme for burlesque than the Babu
immortalized by Mr. Anstey, regarded his mystical simplicity as fair
game for parody, and declined to worship at his shrine. Another foreign
importation, Mr. Conrad--whom in virtue of long residence in England,
marvellous command of our language and unequalled insight into the
magic of the sea and the simple heroism of the British sailorman, we
are proud to call one of ourselves and one of the glories of English
fiction--fascinated _Punch_ in 1900, the year in which _Lord Jim_
appeared. _Punch_ was a little disconcerted at first by Mr. Conrad's
oblique method of narration, but the fascination grew with advancing
years.
[Sidenote: _Farewell to Mark Twain_]
I find few references to Continental authors, but may single out the
"little English wreath" which _Punch_ added to the memorial tributes to
Alphonse Daudet on his death in 1897. Daudet's affinities with Dickens,
always one of _Punch's_ heroes, naturally appealed to him apart from
the humour of _Tartarin_ and the masterly studies of the Second Empire
which Daudet had seen from the inside as one of the Duc de Morny's
private secretaries. Towards American writers _Punch_ was almost
uniformly sympathetic. It is true that he appreciated the earlier and
American manner of Henry James more than the later cosmopolitan phase
which began with _The Portrait of a Lady_. But during the short period
in which _Punch_, in his "additional pages," published a number of
short stories by various authors, Henry James was a contributor, and
_Mrs. Medwin_ appeared in serial form in four successive numbers in
August and September, 1901. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who died in 1894,
is compared to Elia in the graceful memorial stanzas modelled on
"The Last Leaf." Mr. W. D. Howells's papers on London and England in
_Harper's Magazine_ in 1904 prompt a generous acknowledgment of their
reasonableness, sanity and humour, together with an expression of
amazement at the productivity of American short-story writers, mostly
in the manner of Mr. Henry James. _Punch_, both then and afterwards,
refused to take Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox seriously, and described
her essays, _The Woman of the World_, as "high-toned but serenely
platitudinous; 'bland, passionate, but deeply religious.'" Mark Twain,
on his visit to London in 1907, was welcomed with pen and pencil--in
the cartoon "To a Master of his Art," where _Punch_ salutes him over
the punch-bowl and in some verses, _à propos_ of the dinner at the
Pilgrims' Club:--
Pilot of many Pilgrims since the shout
"Mark twain!"--that serves you for a deathless sign--
On Mississippi's waterway rang out
Over the plummet's line--
Still where the countless ripples laugh above
The blue of halcyon seas long may you keep
Your course unbroken, buoyed upon a love
Ten thousand fathoms deep!
Some three years later came _Punch's_ "_Ave, atque Vale_," when Mark
Twain died in April, 1910:--
Farewell the gentle spirit, strong to hold
Two sister lands beneath its laughter's spell!
Farewell the courage and the heart of gold!
Hail and Farewell!
To complete these American references I may add that _Punch_ in 1907
made great play out of the letter addressed by an American "Clippings
Agency" to Petrarch, offering to send him press-cuttings of his works.
But America has no monopoly of these solecisms. Fourteen years later,
when the Phoenix Society revived _The Maid's Tragedy_, a similar
offer was made by a London press-cutting agency to "John Fletcher,
Esq." and "--Beaumont, Esq."
JOURNALISM
Already in the early 'nineties the altered status of journalism and
the journalist had leapt to the eyes of _Punch_, who himself was in a
sense born and bred in the "Street of Ink." I pass over his ironical
disapproval of the _St. James's Gazette_ when that journal, in October,
1892, "sincerely hoped that there was no truth in the rumour that a
paper for children will shortly make its appearance, entirely written
and illustrated by children under fifteen years of age." The project
never materialized, but its spirit has been translated into action
by the literary enterprise of our modern _enfants terribles_. The
adult journalist in the 'nineties was not to suffer from this unfair
competition for a good many years to come. Meanwhile he could at least
congratulate himself that he was better housed and paid: it was not
until 1904 that the "wisdom of the East" began to interfere with his
freedom as a war correspondent.
[Illustration: THE WISDOM OF THE EAST
JAPANESE OFFICER (to Press Correspondent): "Abjectly we desire
to distinguish honourable newspaper man by honourable badge."]
[Sidenote: _The Daily Mail Arrives_]
In 1897 _Punch_ illustrated the change by parallel pictures of the
journalist in 1837, writing in a squalid room in the Fleet Prison, and
in the year of the Diamond Jubilee, seated in a sumptuously equipped
office, fat and prosperous, and smoking a large cigar. In the previous
year _Punch_ had saluted the _Daily News_ on the attainment of its
jubilee. The connexion was an old and intimate one, for the publishers
of _Punch_ had been the first publishers of the _Daily News_, and it
had been renewed in the 'nineties when Sir Henry Lucy ("Toby," of
_Punch_) for a while occupied the chair in which Dickens had sat. A far
more momentous event, however, was associated with the year 1896--the
founding of the _Daily Mail_ by Mr. Alfred Harmsworth, subsequently
described by one of _Punch's_ writers as "the arch-tarantulator of our
times." He was certainly, if unintentionally, invaluable to _Punch_,
and even more stimulating than Mr. Caine and Miss Corelli. By 1900
his genius for discovering a constant succession of scapegoats, and
converting the idol of yesterday into the Aunt Sally of to-day, is
handsomely acknowledged in the lines "Ad Aluredum Damnodignum." Then it
was Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Mr. Balfour, but _Punch_ foresaw that
the habit was inveterate:--
For still, oh hawk-eyed Harmsworth, you pursue
With more than all the ardour of a lover,
From find to check and so from check to view
Your scapegoat-hunt from covert into covert.
As for the test of circulation, _Punch_ betrays a certain scepticism in
his remarks on "The People's Pulse" in 1903:--
The account given by the _Daily Mail_, in Saturday's issue, of its
daily circulation for the last eight months, together with the
leading event of each day, ought to be kept up from time to time as
a Permanent People's Pulse Report. Nothing could be more instructive
than to note, for instance, that while the Delhi Durbar only attracted
844,799 readers, the "Oyster Scare" allured as many as 846,501; while
"Lord Dalmeny's Coming of Age" brought the figures up to 847,080, and
the "Sardine Famine" accounted for a further increase of 14,586. Or,
again, there is a world of significance in the fact that the relative
attractions of the "Poet Laureate's Play" and "Mr. Seddon's Meat
Shops" are represented by a balance of 5,291 in favour of the Napoleon
of New Zealand.
Life was certainly made livelier by the new methods introduced, with
variations, from America, and _Punch_ feelingly contrasts the drab
existence of those who lived before with that of those who lived under
the Harmsworth _régime_:--
Drear was the lot, minus the _Mail_,
Of soldier, sailor, ploughboy, tinker;
And worse, whenever they grew pale,
They had no pills to make them pinker.
It is a nice question whether we owe more to the pink pill or to the
Yellow Press. But there can be no doubt as to the influence of the
new journalism on sport and pastime. Until then, in _Punch's_ phrase,
"cricket was still a childish game and not a penman's serious study."
Henceforth the cricketer fulfilled a double function. He not only
played cricket but he wrote about it--and himself. Under the heading
"The Cricketer on the Hearth," in 1899, _Punch_ publishes an imaginary
interview _à la mode_ with Mr. Slogger. We omit the complacent
autobiographical passages and content ourselves with the sequel:--
"Well, that's pretty well all, I think, except you'll probably want
to print at length my opinions on the Transvaal Question, Wagner's
Music, and the Future of Agriculture. These will have an overpowering
interest for your readers."
"Here are a few photographs of myself--but it's rather too heavy a
parcel to carry. I'll send it round in a van. Of course you'll print
them all. And now I must ask you to excuse me, as it's time to get
into flannels."
I thanked him for his courtesy, and hoped that he'd make a fine score
in the county match. He stared at me in surprise. "County Match?
You don't imagine I've time to play cricket nowadays, do you? No;
I'm going to change because half-a-dozen photographers will be here
directly, and they like to take me in costume. And after that I shall
have to see seven or eight more interviewers. Good morning!"
[Sidenote: _The Cricket Journalist_]
The intrusion of the emotional literary "note" in articles on pastime
came later, and is parodied in the article (in 1904) "Do we take our
amusements seriously enough?" by Mr. C. B. F:--
The frivolity of the Press is only paralleled by the frivolity of the
public. Take the light and airy way in which the spectators at our
great cricket grounds treat the imposing functions provided for them.
Suppose little (but heroic) Johnny Tyldesley runs out to that wily,
curling ball which sunny-faced Wilfred Rhodes pitches thirty-three
and three-quarter inches from the block. Up glides his trusty willow,
and a fortieth of a second after the ball has pitched descends on the
leather. With a wonderful flick of the elbow he chops the ball exactly
between square leg and point. Is the raucous "Well hit, Johnny," of
the crowd a fitting, a reverent salutation? Our Elizabethan dramatists
knew better. Have you not noticed in their stage directions, "A solemn
music"? Two or three phrases of Chopin played, let us say, on the
French horn by the doyen of the Press-box would be a better tribute
to such a miracle of skill. There are, however, elements of better
things in our crowds. Before now I have seen the potent Jessop smite
a rising ball to the boundary with all the concentrated energy of his
Atlantean shoulders, and as the ball reached the ring the spectators
with involuntary reverence prostrated themselves before it.
Nor do our greatest men gain the public honours which are their due.
In ancient Greece a great athlete was a national hero. The name of
Ladas has come down to us through the ages with those of Socrates and
Xenophon. Think of the sad contrast in modern England. Why is not Plum
Warner (I knew him in long clothes) a Knight of the Garter? Why is not
Ranji (exquisitely delicate Ranji--the Walter Pater of the cricket
field) Viceroy of India? There are living cricketers, with an average
of over eighty, and a dozen centuries in one season to their credit,
who have never even been sworn of the Privy Council.
On every side I trace the growth of the same spirit. England is
devoting itself to art, politics, literature and theology, and in
the rush and hurry of our modern life there is a sad danger that
sport will be underrated or overlooked. My countrymen must learn to
concentrate their minds on the things which really matter. In your
nobler moments would you not rather stand at the wicket than at the
table of the House of Commons, or on the political platform of the
City Temple, or on the stage of the Alhambra? Save her sport and you
save England.
Modern journalistic methods are reduced to absurdity in the account of
the staff of a daily paper, who are all football players, cricketers,
clairvoyants, crystal-gazers, music-hall artists, or burglars. In the
verses on "Journalistic Evolution," in 1907, the tendency to condense
everything is specially noted. Leaders have become "leaderettes," and
will in turn yield to "leaderettelets"; the writer prophesies a day
when _The Times_ will only consist of headlines.
Dasent's _Life of Delane_ appeared in 1908, and _Punch's_ reviewer
reminds us of the commanding position occupied by that great editor,
who was consulted by all Premiers, except Gladstone, and to whom
Palmerston actually offered office. The gist and sting of the review,
however, is to be found in a sentence not merely true but almost tragic
in its bearings on the history of English journalism:--
Delane accepted the favour of contributions by Cabinet Ministers to
his news-chest, but he recognized that the power and influence of _The
Times_ were based upon the foundations of public spirit, concern for
national interest, and absolute impartiality in dealing with statesmen.
[Illustration: PENNY WISDOM
("In view of the grave importance of the present political situation,
_The Times_ will be reduced in price to a penny."--Press Association.)]
_The Times_ passed under the financial control of Lord Northcliffe at
the beginning of 1908, and in the spring of 1914, "in view of the
grave importance of the political situation," its price was reduced to
one penny. _Punch's_ comment took the form of a cartoon in which the
new Dictator of Printing House Square is shown as a salesman at the
door of the "Northcliffe Stores" with the legend on a slate, "Thunder
is cheap to-day."
[Sidenote: _Homage to Andrew Lang_]
By way of contrast with hustling methods _Punch_ had noted with regret
the passing in 1905 of _Longman's Magazine_, in whose pages Mr. Andrew
Lang had for many years presided so gracefully "At the Sign of the
Ship":--
Formerly, when, sated by sensation,
Gentle readers sought an air serene,
Refuge from the snapshot's domination
Might be found in _Longman's Magazine_.
There at least the roaring cult of dollars
Never took its devastating way;
There the pens of gentlemen and scholars
Held their uncontaminating sway.
There no parasitic bookman prated,
No malarious poetasters sang,
There all themes were touched and decorated
By your nimble fancy, Andrew Lang.
True, some hobbies you were always riding,
--Spooks and spies and totemistic lore;
But so deft, so dext'rous was your guiding,
No one ever labelled you a bore.
But alas! the landmarks that we cherish,
Standing for the earlier, better way,
Vanquished by vulgarity must perish,
Overthrown by "enterprise" decay.
Still with fairy books will you regale us,
Still pay homage to the sacred Nine,
But no more hereafter will you hail us
Monthly at the Ship's familiar Sign.
There no longer faithfully and gaily
Will you deal alike with foes and friends,
Wherefore, crying "Ave, atque vale!"
_Punch_ his parting salutation sends.
_Punch_ had his own losses to deplore, for in August, 1897, the death
of Mr. E. J. Milliken removed a most valuable and fertile member of his
staff. Mr. Milliken was not only the creator of "'Arry," and a fluent
and dexterous versifier, but he combined with a retentive and accurate
memory "the rare talent of most happily applying past literature,
whether in history or fiction, to the illustration of contemporary
instances," and for a long time had been the chief cartoon-suggester.
A longer and more distinguished connexion with _Punch_ was severed in
1906 by the retirement of Sir Frank Burnand after forty-three years'
service. He joined in 1863, as the youngest of the staff, and held the
editorship for over twenty-five years. In "Just a Few Words at Parting"
he defines the aim of the editor in words worthy of remembrance. If
_Punch_ was to hold securely the position he had achieved, it should
and must be "to provide relaxation for all, fun for all, without a
spice of malice or a suspicion of vulgarity, humour without a flavour
of bitterness, satire without reckless severity, and nonsense so
laughter-compelling as to be absolutely irresistible from its very
absurdity." The precept hardly covers the higher function assumed by
_Punch_ in "The Song of the Shirt," but, as it stands, had assuredly
been faithfully carried into practice by the master of exhilarating
burlesque, the intrepid parodist, the author of the immortal _Happy
Thoughts_. As for the personal affection that he inspired in his staff,
it is truly expressed in the farewell lines addressed to him by "R. C.
L.":--
Dear Frank, our fellow-fighter, how noble was your praise,
How kindly rang your welcome on those delightful days
When, gathered in your presence, we cheered each piercing hit,
And crowned with joy and laughter the rapier of your wit.
And if our words grew bitter, and wigs, that should have been
Our heads' serene adornment, were all but on the green,
How oft your sunny humour has shone upon the fray,
And fused our fiery tempers, and laughed our strife away!
FINE ARTS, DRAMA AND MUSIC
I have noticed in earlier volumes with what asperity _Punch_ assailed
the conventionalities of academic and Royal Academic Art; how he
became, for a while at any rate, a convert to Pre-Raphaelitism; how,
later on, the exhibitors at the Grosvenor Gallery superseded the
exponents of fashionable orthodoxy at Burlington House as the targets
of his satire; and with what unremitting and undiscriminating zeal he
"belaboured" all representatives of the Æsthetic movement. The further
progress of this reaction can be traced throughout the first half of
the period now under review. In the 'nineties Aubrey Beardsley was
his special _bête noire_; in the early years of the new century the
Impressionist school, and by 1910 the Post-Impressionists, furnish
him with unfailing matter for caricature. It was not that those who
stood on the old ways were exempt from criticism. Year after year
the annual summer show at Burlington House never failed to receive
a punctual tribute from pen and pencil. But for the most part these
notices are inspired by irresponsible frivolity--a desire to extract
fun by burlesquing the titles and subjects and treatment quite foreign
to the spirit in which _Punch_ had addressed himself to the task in
the 'fifties, and even later. The private view of the Academy became
for _Punch_ an annual excuse for an explosion of punning, and the
illustrations were a faithful counterpart of the text. Yet criticism
occasionally emerges from this carnival of jocularity, as when Mr.
Sargent's cavalier treatment of details is noted in 1895; or when
_Punch_ in 1902 suggests that the formidable congestion of pictures at
the R.A. might be relieved by hanging some of them in the refreshment
room; or when he writes in 1904:--
An interesting exhibit at the Royal Academy is a drawing executed by
the artist when he was only sixteen years of age. Quite a feature of
the show, too, is the number of pictures by artists over that age
which have the appearance of having been painted by artists under that
age.
In 1908 _Punch_ satirized a then prevalent fashion in his drawing
of the "Problem Room" at Burlington House, crowded with perplexed
spectators dropping their solutions into a box marked "Puzzle Picture
Syndicate." When the "Rokeby Venus" was damaged by a militant
suffragist in 1914, _Punch_ suggested that the offender ought to be
made to serve her term of imprisonment in the Royal Academy--a remark
quite in the spirit of his old art-critic, Charles Eastlake.
The oblique and ironical method is admirably employed in the dramatized
conversations of visitors to the Academy and other exhibitions. In
the sketch "Round the R.A." in 1893 the schoolmistress and her bored
pupils, the complacent Briton giving himself away at every turn to his
French friend, and the prosaic and practical person, are all drawn
from the quick. The orthodox verdict is "quite up to the average--such
delightful puppies and kittens," while the rebellious pupil of the
edifying Miss Pemmican remarks, "Bother the beastly old Academy. I wish
it was burnt, I do!"
From the same hand, seventeen years later, comes an
equally illuminating sketch of the visitors to the Grafton
Galleries--art-student, precious young painter, young City man,
high-brow critic, matter-of-fact lady, and the frank and immortal
Philistine only moved to unseemly mirth when his friend remarks,
"Drawing to the Synthesist is entirely unimportant in solving the
problem how the artist may best express his own temperament." _Punch_
often found himself driven into the ranks of the Philistines in
self-defence; anyhow, he always preferred the way of Gath to that of
gush. In "An Old Master's Growl" in 1895 the speaker declares that the
mass of the people only enjoyed the annual summer show; the few who
came to see the Old Masters mostly came to be seen. But the ancients
were not annoyed, it was only what they expected:--
We expect it--I said just as much to Vandyck--
There's but one in a hundred that comes who'll descry
The Beauty of Art. It's the sham I dislike:
Well--good-bye!
[Sidenote: _Leighton and Millais_]
From the other end of the scale comes another "growl" in the same
year--that of the professional model, in Phil May's picture, against
Burne-Jones who had recently made a drawing of Labour for the _Daily
Chronicle_: "I reckon 'e'll be on the pavement next." Personalities,
rather than principles or theories, interested _Punch_ at this period,
and in 1896 and 1897 the circle of his eminent Victorian friends was
reduced by the passing of three ornaments of British Art, all of them
Academicians and two successively presidents of the Academy. Of the
two sets of verses on Leighton, the second is much the better. _Punch_
takes for his text Watts's saying that Leighton had painted many
pictures, but that his life was nobler than them all:--
_Noblesse oblige_: his manners matched his art;
Fine painter-skill, the bearing of a prince.
The writer alludes to the malignant disparagement indulged in by his
detractors and sums up:--
Great if not quite among the greatest, here
A noble artist of a noble life
Rests with a fame that lives, and need not fear
Detraction or the hour's ephemeral strife.
Leighton's generosity and munificence to brother artists deserved all
and more than all that _Punch_ said: his fame as an artist has hardly
borne out the prediction of the last couplet. Sir John Millais, his
successor, was linked by more intimate ties from the days of _Once a
Week_. Du Maurier was one of his dearest friends, and _Punch_ claimed
to have been alone, save for the _Spectator_, in acclaiming the genius
of his early work. As he happily says, "from P.R.B, to P.R.A.--that
tale is worth the telling." Millais only lived a few months to enjoy
his honour, and on his death in the summer of 1896 _Punch_ dwelt on his
triple endowment of health, heartiness and power, his entirely English
spirit, his mastery as a painter, and his genius for friendship.
Sir John Gilbert, who died a year later, was an old comrade and
contributor. He had designed the fourth wrapper in January,
1843--Doyle's final design was not adopted till six years later--and
contributed intermittently to _Punch_ down to 1882. His robust and
spirited talent as an illustrator is acknowledged in _Punch's_
tribute:--
The faded history of courts and kings
Touched by your spell took on its former hue;
You made the daily art of common things
Fresh as the morning dew.
A deeper note is sounded in _Punch's_ salutation of Watts on his
death in 1904, when he recognizes the fidelity of that illustrious
artist to his conception of the high mission of Art and his well-known
repudiation of the maxim "Art for Art's Sake":--
His means were servants to the end in view
And not the end's self; so his heart was wise
To hold--as they have held, the chosen few--
High failure dearer than the easy prize.
Now lifted face to face with unseen things,
Dimly imagined in the lower life,
He sees his Hope renew her broken strings,
And _Love and Death_ no more at bitter strife.
[Sidenote: _Punch on Aubrey Beardsley_]
To retrace our steps to the 'nineties, it must be admitted that
_Punch_ enjoyed himself more in belabouring Beardsley than in saluting
established reputations. Seeing nothing in his work but a wilful,
exotic and decadent _bizarrerie_, _Punch_ assailed him under various
_aliases_, all of them grotesque and uncomplimentary. In 1893 the
famous Beardsley "poster" for the Avenue Theatre inspired the lines
headed "Ars Postera," which begin:--
Mr. Aubrey Beer de Beers,
You're getting quite a high renown;
Your Comedy of Leers, you know,
Is posted all about the town;
This sort of stuff I cannot puff,
As Boston says, it makes me "tired":
Your Japanee-Rossetti girl
Is not a thing to be desired.
Mr. Aubrey Beer de Beers,
New English Art (excuse the chaff)
Is like the Newest Humour style,
It's not a thing at which to laugh:
But all the same, you need not maim
A beauty reared on Nature's rules;
A simple maid _au naturel_
Is worth a dozen spotted ghouls.
[Illustration: THE DISCOMFITURE OF THE PHILISTINES
On being presented with artful and crafty puzzle by artistic friend.
(Query--Is it the right way up? And, if so, _what_ is it?)]
_Punch_ pursued his pet aversion from pillar to post--or poster--with
caricatures of his types, compared to "Stygian Sphinxes, Chimæras
in soot, problems in Euclid gone mad." Mr. Beardsley, however, was
not the only emancipated artist who came under _Punch's_ lash. In
a notice of an Exhibition at the Dudley Gallery, Mr. Sickert's
picture of "The Sisters Lloyd" prompts the comment, "To be more
original than the originals is to paint the piccalilli and gild the
refined ginger-bread." By 1901 _Punch_ had become much impressed and
exasperated by the modern cult of ugliness, and in 1902 began the
first of a succession of travesties of modern impressionist art--"The
Garden Party," "The Picnic," "A Dutch Landscape," in which all the
negligible features are accentuated and the important ones left
out. Another ingenious series belonging to the same year is that of
illustrations of "Mary had a Little Lamb" in the style of Marcus
Stone, Goodall, Clausen, Alma-Tadema, Dana Gibson, Albert Moore,
John Collier, Briton Rivière, etc. These are executed in a spirit
of friendly burlesque, very different from the notice of Mr. Gordon
Craig's drawings, which is a masterpiece of adroit belittlement.
"His drawing-power as an actor," we read, "is only equalled by his
drawing-power as an artist"; and _Punch_ kindly recommends him "to
confine, or extend, his art almost entirely to designing nursery
wall-papers."
The exuberances of "_nouveau art_" had already elicited the cry of the
visitor (in Du Maurier's picture in 1894) on being shown round her
friend's new house: "Oh, _Liberty_, how many crimes are committed in
thy name!"--a joke repeated from an earlier volume.[8] Nine years later
the angularities of the new "Artful and Crafty" furniture are held up
to well-merited ridicule. But it is only right to add that in 1897, in
"The Pendulum of Taste"--an imaginative forecast of the sale of old
furniture in the year 1996--_Punch_ indulges in a comprehensive and
entirely damaging review of the monstrosities of Victorian furniture
and decoration: groups of fruit in wax; hideous gaseliers; terrible
chromolithographs; a tea-cosy embroidered with holly-berries in crewel
work; a kneeling statuette of the infant Samuel; chairs and sofa in
mahogany, upholstered in horsehair; a Kidderminster carpet "with a
striking design of large nosegays on a ground of green moss"; and a
complete set of antimacassars in wool and crochet. Mr. Galsworthy's
minute description of the "Mausoleum," in which old Timothy Forsyte,
the last and most long-lived of his generation, lived or rather
vegetated down to and through the War, is much on the same lines. But
_Punch_, being nearly twice as old as Mr. Galsworthy, had spent a good
part of his life amid these surroundings.
[Footnote 8: The Botticelli joke in the same year was new. One man
is afraid he made an ass of himself because, when asked if he liked
Botticelli, he had said that he preferred Chianti, and his friend
kindly explains that Botticelli is not a wine but a cheese.]
[Sidenote: _Art Definitions_]
The principles and theory of art-criticism, as I have noted above, did
not trouble _Punch_ greatly in the first twelve or fifteen years of
this period. He was mainly concerned with the robust expression of his
likes and dislikes. But by 1908 he had become slightly infected by the
new psychology of art, and by way of clarifying the atmosphere launched
the following list of definitions:--
ART
(A glossary for the opening of the R.A.)
An Artist is a person who paints what he thinks he sees.
An Amateur is a person who thinks he paints what he sees.
An Impressionist is a person who paints what other people think he
sees.
A Popular Artist is a person who paints what other people think they
see.
A Successful Artist is a person who paints what he thinks other people
see.
A Great Artist is a person who paints what other people see they think.
A Failure is a person who sees what other people think they paint.
A Portraitist is a person who paints what other people don't think he
sees.
A Landscape Painter is a person who doesn't paint what other people
see.
A Realist is a person who sees what other people don't paint.
An Idealist is a person who paints what other people don't see.
The Hanging Committee are people who don't see what other people think
they paint.
A Royal Academician is a person who doesn't think and paints what
other people see.
A Genius is a person who doesn't see and paints what other people
don't think.
A Critic is a person who doesn't paint and thinks what other people
don't see.
The Public are people who don't see or think what other people don't
paint.
A Dealer is a person that sees that people who paint don't think, and
who thinks that people who don't paint don't see. He sees people who
don't see people who paint; he thinks that people who paint don't see
people who see; and he sees what people who don't paint think.
FINALLY
A Reader is a person whose head swims.
The art critics accredited to the daily Press, like their musical
colleagues, could no longer be accused of lagging behind the modernist
tendencies of the times: they aspired to be in the van of progress.
In 1913 _Punch_ burlesques the wonderful phraseology of _The Times_
art critic in one of his "Studies of reviewers," which deals with the
exhibitors at the Neo-British Art League. It may suffice to quote the
appreciations of Mme. Strulda Brugh and Mr. Marcellus Thom. The method
of the former, as illustrated by her "Pekinese Puppies," is contrasted
with that of the Congestionist school in that she "deanthropomorphizes
her scheme of pigmentation into nodules of aplanatic voluminosity":--
When therefore we have to assume a fluorescent reticulation of the
interstitial sonorities, a situation is developed which might well
baffle any but an advanced expert in transcendental mathematics. As a
result the modelling of the puppies' tails is lacking in curvilinear
conviction; their heads fail in canine suggestiveness, their fore-paws
in prehensile subjectivity.
Mr. Marcellus Thom's "Sardine Fishers in the Adriatic," executed
in "creosoted truffle stick," is a masterpiece of "suppressed but
dignified antinomianism":--
Wonderful though the drawing and the interfiltration of coordinating
paraboloids are, it is the psychological content of the picture rather
than its direct presentative significance which affects the solar
plexus of the enlightened onlooker. The whole atmosphere is summarized
and condensed in a circumambient and oleaginous aura.... To do full
justice to such a picture is unhappily beyond the resources of the
most sublime preciosity. It demands the [Greek: esôterikê phlyaria] of
Theopompus of Megalocrania or even the _intima desipientia_ distilled
in the _Atopiad_ of Vesanus Sanguinolentus.
[Illustration: The Hanging Committee _Sir Hubert Herkomer_, R.A.]
[Illustration: Portrait of Miss Guldheimer _J. Sargent, R.A._]
[Illustration: The Young Squire's Wedding _H. H. La Thangue, A.R.A._]
[Illustration: "The red orb sinks, the toiler's day is done" _B. W.
Leader, R.A._]
The new spirit in Art had already been burlesqued by one of _Punch's_
artists in a series of "intelligent anticipations" of the work of
Herkomer, Sargent, Leader and La Thangue as executed in the Futuristic
Style; and again in Mr. Haselden's Paulo-Post-Impressionist portraits
of various celebrities in the _Almanack_ for 1913. In the same year
Mr. Sargent's decision to withdraw from portraiture is commemorated
in a fancy picture of "an old Chelsea Gateway," where, beneath the
name "John S. Sargent" hangs a notice, "No Bottles, No Circulars, No
Hawkers, No Portraits." Here, I may add, that _Punch_ had, three years
earlier, with the aid of Mr. George Morrow's ingenious pencil, duly
chronicled the decay of flattery in contemporary portrait painting.
Three notable additions to the Art Galleries of London were made during
this period. The opening of the National Portrait Gallery, in 1896, is
recorded in Sambourne's picture of Britannia welcoming British worthies
to their new home: "at last we can give you a roof over your heads."
The Tate Gallery, opened in the following year, is welcomed with a
profusion of puns on the name of the donor; and the installation of the
Wallace Collection at Hertford House, in 1900, prompts the observation
that "millions after all have their utility." The sensational
abduction and recovery of the famous portrait of the Duchess of
Devonshire impelled _Punch_ to cry, "_Vive la Grande Duchesse!_" over
the "loss and Gain-sborough picture." Another famous portrait of a
Duchess--Holbein's superb Christina of Milan--was in danger of being
permanently lost to England in 1909, when _Punch_, in "Hans across the
sea," portrayed an American dealer with a bag of dollars dragging the
Duchess away with the comment: "Once aboard the liner, and the gyurl
is mine!" The peril, however, was averted, and Christina still remains
with us in London.
[Sidenote: _Tenniel, Phil May and Sambourne_]
I do not suppose that any of the honours which have fallen to his staff
ever gave _Punch_ more unfeigned satisfaction than the knighthood
bestowed on Tenniel in 1893. The "Black-and-White Knight," as _Punch_
then called him, did not quit the "Table" until 1901, when he had been
a member for fifty years, and the public dinner given in his honour,
with Mr. Balfour in the chair, was a national tribute to a great
gentleman and great artist. On his death in 1914 the special "Tenniel"
number, with personal tributes from his colleagues, was a wonderful
memorial of the work of one who "nothing common drew or mean." Tenniel
was the Nestor of _Punch's_ staff. When the copyright of _Alice in
Wonderland_ expired, a number of artists laid hands on the text, to the
disgust of _Punch_, who regarded this attempt to supplant Tenniel's
illustrations as little less than an act of sacrilege. The situation
is happily dealt with in Mr. Reed's picture of Alice, surrounded with
Tenniel's figures, contemplating the antics of the interlopers, and
asking, "Who are these funny little people?" The Hatter replies: "Your
Majesty, they are our imitators"; and Alice rejoins: "Curiouser and
curiouser." Phil May was only thirty-nine when he died in 1903, and
left a gap never quite filled as a brilliant, humorous and masterly
delineator of street life and of modern Alsatia. Phil May, who was
the soul of modesty and gentleness, and had no enemy in the world but
himself, once said, "Everything I know I learnt from 'Sammy.'" "Sammy,"
as all his colleagues called Linley Sambourne, who succeeded Tenniel
as chief cartoonist, was the greatest pride and pleasure of the Table
until his death in 1910, and affection and regret still keep his memory
green. When one compares his early with his later work, one is inclined
to assert that none of _Punch's_ artists ever made more astonishing
progress in their art. And for the rest I can only echo what one of his
colleagues wrote on his passing: "While Art has lost a noble, sincere
and devoted servant, we have lost our merriest friend."
[Illustration: AT THE TATE GALLERY
DUTIFUL NEPHEW (doing the sights of London for the benefit of
his aunt from the country): "This is the famous 'Minotaur,' by Watts.
What do you think of it?"
AUNT: "Well, it's a _short-horn_, whatever else it may be!"]
DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC
The period which began with the triumphs of the late Mr. Penley, and
ended with those of Mr. Ainley, was more remarkable for dramatic
alarums, excursions, innovations, inventions and discoveries than
any of those dealt with in my previous volumes. If one were asked to
single out the most remarkable event in British Theatrical history
in those twenty-two years, pre-eminence might fairly be awarded to
the establishment and fruitful work of the repertory theatres in the
provinces--Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Dublin. I mentioned in
an earlier volume _Punch's_ generous tribute to Calvert's services
in Manchester, but if we except his references to the Irish players,
little or nothing is said of this decentralizing movement. Where the
theatre was concerned _Punch_, as in many other ways, was first and
foremost a Londoner. But, with this reserve, most of the outstanding
features of the drama and its presentation are recorded and commented
on in his pages. New dramatic luminaries shot into his sphere, some
of them too wildly to suit his Victorian tastes. Ibsen remained for a
while as his chief bogy and butt, but was supplanted, as a target for
caricature, by Maeterlinck, and to a certain extent by Rostand. But as
time went on _Punch_ was even more preoccupied with the experiments
and achievements of native playwrights. The revival of the poetic
or literary drama associated chiefly with the works of the late Mr.
Stephen Phillips, met with a not unsympathetic reception at his hands.
Mr. Shaw worried him from the very outset, but there is no notice
of _Arms and the Man_ in 1894, in which, by the way, Mr. Bernard
Partridge, as Mr. Bernard Gould, greatly distinguished himself before
he abandoned the boards for black-and-white. _Punch_ contemptuously
dismisses the piece with two lines and two villainous puns: "''Ave a
New Piece?' They've got it at the Avenue. A shawt criticism on it is
'Pshaw! Absurd!'" It was only by slow degrees that _Punch_ came to
recognize the vivacity, the wit and the originality which redeemed Mr.
Shaw's perversity, his lapses from taste and his consistent defiance of
tradition and convention. It was, if my memory serves me aright, one of
_Punch's_ young men who was responsible for a poem, recited at a dinner
of the Stage Society, which contained the couplet:--
And if _The Lady from the Sea_ seems foreign,
For British matrons there is _Mrs. Warren_.
[Sidenote: _A Short Way with Shaw_]
Towards Barrie as a playwright _Punch_ was at first much less
benevolent than he had been to Barrie the novelist, and Mr. Granville
Barker's plays depressed more than they impressed him. But for rather
more than half the period under review _Punch's_ critiques of plays
were primarily a medium for jocular comment, for fun at all costs, for
explosions of puns. As a devotee of cheerfulness he resented gloom; as
a professional humorist he found himself out of touch with a good deal
of the new humour, the new whimsicality, the new wit. These editorial
limitations were made good by the oblique methods of parody adopted
with brilliant results by some of his collaborators, but it is not too
much to say that theatrical criticism was never so impartially and
tactfully conducted as under the fifth editor of _Punch_, the only one
who had never written for the stage.
Turning from the creative aspect of the drama to the organization and
regulation of the theatre, we have to notice two important factors, one
of which was increasingly active throughout these years. Societies for
the production of new, and the revival of old plays on a non-commercial
basis were already in existence, but an impetus was given to the
movement by the establishment of the Independent Theatre by Mr. Grein
in the 'nineties, and the Stage Society and other similar bodies have
carried it on with undiminished vigour down to the present time. These
activities did not always commend themselves to _Punch_, but at least
he did not ignore them.
[Illustration: PEEPS INTO BIBLICAL THEATRICAL LIFE
Arrival of Actor-Manager, Leading Lady, and other members of the cast.]
Then there was the Censorship. The Lord Chamberlain intervened pretty
frequently in the 'nineties where plays dealing with Scriptural motives
came under his scrutiny. Maeterlinck's _Mona Vanna_ was barred on moral
grounds, and in 1907 the apparently blameless _Mikado_ was temporarily
withdrawn for political reasons. It must be admitted that in these
years _Punch_ was less inclined to criticize these interventions when
they were aimed at the frank discussion of disagreeable themes than
when they sought to restrict the unseemly vivacities of the Variety
Stage--witness his continued hostility to the L.C.C. in regard to their
licensing policy and his comments on the Puritan protests against
the programme at the Empire in 1894. An altered mood, however, is
distinctly revealed in a cartoon in 1907 where the Censor is shown
preferring the claims of musical comedy to those of the serious drama,
and _Punch's_ sympathies are clearly with the latter. Since then,
though Scriptural and political plays have not always escaped the ban,
restrictions on the didactic drama, where it deals with the "social
evil," have been largely withdrawn in deference to modern conceptions
of the needs of education and the responsibilities of the State.
[Sidenote: _English Plays and Foreign Players_]
To go back to 1893, the three plays which _Punch_ specially singled
out for approval were _Charley's Aunt_, _Becket_ and _The Second
Mrs. Tanqueray_. The nearest approach to criticism is to be found in
the notice of the first-named piece, in which, while admitting that
Penley was "inimitably and irresistibly funny" throughout two hours of
"all but continuous merriment," the writer lays his finger on a real
blot--the intrusion of cheap sentimentality. Tennyson's _Becket_ is
pronounced a great and genuine success, both for Irving and the author,
who had treated the story "with a free hand, a poetic touch and a
liberal mind." The opening sentences of the notice, however, illustrate
_Punch's_ insuperable inclination to succumb to frivolity. "_Becket_
has beaten the record": and he goes on to speculate how Thomas à Becket
would have beaten _The Record_ if that paper had existed in his time
and had ventured to criticize him.
_The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ might be too strong meat for the young
person, but it "marked an epoch in our dramatic annals," it was "every
inch a play," and revealed in Mrs. Patrick Campbell an actress of
exceptional gifts. There is a delightful burlesque of Ibsen in "Pill
Doctor Herdal," but _Punch_ did not leave well alone, and in another
number furiously denounced _The Master Builder_ (which he had read but
not seen). "Of all the weak-kneed, wandering, effeminate, unwholesome,
immoral, dashed rot (to quote Lord Arthur Pomeroy in _The Pantomime
Rehearsal_) this is the weak-kneed-est," and so on in the superlative
degree with all the other epithets of abuse. This was the year in which
Madame Duse made her London _début_, but _Punch_ did not get beyond a
few puns on her name. The visit of Got, Mlle. Reichemberg and other
representatives of the Comédie Française is treated less cavalierly,
and the rumoured reconciliation of Gilbert and Sullivan suggests the
possibilities of a new "Savoy Peace"--"the Reunion of Arts." Sarah
Bernhardt, Yvette Guilbert and Réjane were the three bright particular
foreign stars in 1894. Sarah Bernhardt was, as we know, an old flame
of the susceptible _Punch_, and though he found _Ize l_ the reverse of
exhilarating, homage was paid to the golden voice of the heroine in a
graceful cartoon of "Sarah Chrysostoma." Réjane in _Madame Sans-Gêne_
comes in for high but not unqualified praise. She was perfect in
the last act, but overdid the _canaillerie_ of her farce in earlier
passages, or at least _Punch_ thought so. His tribute to Yvette
Guilbert, "the Queen of the 'Café Concert,'" killed two birds with
one stone, for it took the form of a very neat and witty adaptation
of her famous song, "Les Vierges," at the expense of the "unco' guid"
of Glasgow, whose Puritanism had recently aroused the protest of Sir
Frederic Leighton and other Academicians:--
Ils défendent tous les desseins
Où l'on peut voir les bras, le sein,
à Glasgow.
Jamais nus; même dans un bain
Sont-ils tout habillés enfin?
(_Parlé_) Matin! A Glasgow.
Portez des lunett's; l'oeil nu
Est absolûment défendu
à Glasgow.
Des corps nus ils n'ont jamais vus
Là, où leurs raisonn'ments sont plus
(_Parlé_) Cornus! A Glasgow.
[Sidenote: _Irving's Knighthood_]
The closing of the Empire Theatre on the score of the improper
character of the performances inspired a cartoon in which "Miss
Prowlina Pry" (the L.C.C.) "hopes she doesn't intrude." The
accompanying verses, protesting against the action of the new
Bumbledom, compare unfavourably in their heavy-heeled satire with
the verses quoted above. Ada Rehan in _Twelfth Night_ is a pleasant
memory to middle-aged playgoers. _Punch_ did not acquit her Viola of
a certain restlessness, but acknowledged that at times she acted like
one inspired. To the same year belongs his tribute to the "imitative
charms" of Cissie Loftus in a set of verses alluding to her imitations
of May Yohé, Florence St. John, Jane May, Yvette Guilbert and Letty
Lind, names that bear witness to the "fugacity" of the years and the
transitoriness of stage popularity.
[Illustration: TRUE APPRECIATION
(Overheard at the Theatre.)
MRS. PARVENU: "I don't know that I'm exactly _gorne_ on
Shakespeare plays."
(_Mr. P. agrees._)
]
In 1895 _Punch_ waxed lyrical over Tree as Svengali and Miss Dorothea
Baird in the title _rôle_ of the dramatized version of _Trilby_. He
bestowed the "highest order of histrionic merit" on Irving for his
Corporal Brewster in Conan Doyle's _Story of Waterloo_, and, in the
cartoon recording his knighthood, congratulated him in the name of
the profession through the mouth of David Garrick. Pinero's play,
_The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith_, is described as "a drama of inaction"
owing to the length of the speeches, but praise is liberally bestowed
on Hare, Forbes-Robertson and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. The popularity
of a now forgotten work of advanced fiction--_Keynotes_, by "George
Egerton"--is attested by _Punch's_ perversion of the title of the piece
into "_The Key-note-orious Mrs. Ebbsmith_." The revival of _Romeo and
Juliet_ served as the occasion for jest seasoned with shrewdness:--
Mrs. Patrick Campbell's "Juliet" takes the poison but not the
cake. Her "Juliet" has over her the shadow of Paula Tanqueray....
Watching Forbes Robertson as "Romeo" I could not help thinking what
an excellent "Hamlet" he would make; perhaps when I see him in that
character I shall remember how good he was in "Romeo."
_Cymbeline_ was the next of the Shakespearean revivals, and its
production at the Lyceum, with Irving as Iachimo and Ellen Terry
as Imogen, prompted eulogies of the performance and a burlesque of
the plot. Mrs. Stirling (Lady Gregory), famous in her prime as Peg
Woffington, incomparable in her old age as the Nurse in _Romeo and
Juliet_, awakened gracious memories in _Punch_ when she died at the
close of 1895. Sir Augustus Harris was little more than half her age
when his crowded and in the main prosperous life ended some six months
later. The memorial verses to "Druriolanus," the ingenious _agnomen_
of _Punch's_ coining, render full justice to one who began as an
indifferent melodramatic actor and ended as a successful impresario,
and throughout served "amusement's motley world" with unfailing energy
and resourcefulness. But to call him the Showman and Solon of the stage
was at once to exaggerate his defects and his merits.
Mr. Henry Arthur Jones cannot be said to have been exactly a favourite
with _Punch_ in these years. Indeed, the title under which _Punch_
habitually alluded to him--'Enery Author Jones--was the reverse of
honorific. Yet in 1897 _The Liars_, with Charles Wyndham in the
principal _rôle_, was cordially welcomed as "an exceptional play with
the prospect of an exceptionally long run." Praise from such a source
was praise indeed. The tragic death of William Terriss at the hand of
a lunatic robbed melodrama of its brightest ornament, and _Punch's_
memorial verses, though melodramatic in their emotion, are a faithful
reflection of popular sentiment. _Aladdin_ at Drury Lane impels _Punch_
to pay a well-deserved compliment to Mr. Oscar Barrett for maintaining
the best traditions of pantomime. From first to last it was "very funny
without being in the least vulgar," and _Punch's_ notice is embellished
by an admirable portrait of Dan Leno as "The Second Mrs. Twankyray."
In 1898 Rostand swam into our ken with _Cyrano de Bergerac_, but
_Punch_ took decidedly a minority view in crediting Coquelin with a
"nasal victory over difficulties of his own choice." The author "had
much to be thankful for," and the play is pronounced overweighted with
verbiage which was neither brilliant nor helpful. _Punch_ was much
happier in his burlesques of Maeterlinck, "the Belgian Shakespeare,"
and the travesty of _Hamlet_, with "Ophelaine" and "Hamelette," and
the dialogue, re-written in Ollendorffian sentences abounding in
endless iteration, makes excellent reading, though perhaps eclipsed
by the brilliant condensed American version of the same tragedy, in
which prominence is assigned to the members of the Elsinore University
Football Team. In 1899 the claims of the Celtic Drama begin to assert
themselves, but _Punch's_ "recipe" for the construction of this new
type, founded on Mr. Martyn's play, _The Heather Field_, shows little
sympathy for the aims or methods of the new school:--
[Sidenote: _Rostand and Maeterlinck_]
Choose for your scene an Irish bog. Among brutal Saxons the
theory still lingers that Ireland is all bog, and this will give
_vraisemblance_ to your picture. If you require an Interior, an
Irish cabin will be most appropriate, for there is another curious
superstition on this side of the St. George's Channel that all
Irishmen live in cabins.
For the subject of your drama select something gloomy and
Scandinavian. It is true that _The Times_ says that "Lunacy and
surface drainage are not cheerful subjects for drama," but your
Celt knows better. Everything depends on the treatment. Did not
Ibsen contrive a drama of enthralling interest on the subject of the
drainage of a watering-place? And they say Ibsen is a Scotsman by
descent, which is next door to being a Celt.
Let your characters be crazy or neurotic. You will find Ibsen's
works a perfect storehouse of these, and if you "lift" one or two
of them nobody is likely to detect the theft. _Rita Allmers_, or
_Mrs. Borkman_, or that sweet thing _Hedda Gabler_, would all come
in useful, and, as your scene is an Irish bog, there is an obvious
opening for a Wild Duck.
If the plot of your play is gloomy, the dialogue should be even
gloomier. Irish humour would be quite out of place on this occasion.
No one must flourish a shillelah or sing "_Killaloe_" to lighten up
the proceedings, and the stirring strains of "_The Wearing of the
Green_" must be rigidly banished. This paramount necessity for gloom
will probably place you in a somewhat difficult position, and may
make it necessary for you to banish the Irish brogue altogether from
your cast. Long experience has shown that a Saxon audience invariably
associates a brogue with latent humour, and if anybody laughed it
would be all up with the Celtic Renascence.
_Punch's_ charity--or tolerance--did not, however, begin at home.
London dramatic critics fared no better at his hands than Irish
playwrights; witness the essay which begins "Dramatic critics are of
three kinds. They may either write about themselves, or about the
play, or about Macready." The first were egotistic, the second wholly
unjudicial, the third laboriously and tediously reminiscent. But the
sting of the satire is in the last paragraph:--
In criticizing the acting of a play, you should be guided wholly by
the status of the actors. Thus the performance of the highly salaried
players should receive unstinted praise, and that of the actor-manager
(it is not the least blessing of his happy position) adulation. Less
known performers may be mentioned with less enthusiasm, and minor
personages may even be alluded to with marked disfavour. This will
lend to your judgments that air of fine discrimination which will add
to their weight.
[Sidenote: _Punch and "the Duse"_]
Loyalty to old favourites was another matter, as when _Punch_, under
the heading "Little Nell," pleaded in support of the "Nellie Farren"
Benefit on behalf of that famous Gaiety heroine in 1898; or when in
1899 he offered his parting salute to Mrs. Keeley, who throughout her
long career in burlesque, melodrama, and legitimate drama had never
been vulgar or tawdry, but always brave and gay, and who lived to the
patriarchal age of ninety-four. Sardou's _Robespierre_, written for Sir
Henry Irving and his company, gave _Punch_ the opening for a graceful
compliment to father and son, for Mr. Lawrence Irving translated the
play and appeared in the part of Tallien. Sarah Bernhardt's _Hamlet_ is
regarded rather as a _tour de force_ than a legitimate interpretation,
and _Punch_, who could not accept her reading of the Prince as a
mischievous, spoilt and conceited boy of eighteen, suggested, in a
whimsical picture, that she ought to get Irving to play the part
of Ophelia. The same year, 1899, was notable for the coming of the
_Revue_. The pioneer effort, which was launched at the Avenue Theatre,
was more or less on French lines, but even at the outset the Variety
element was prominent in a series of imitations of popular actors
and actresses. Tree's production of _King John_, with Lewis Waller
as Falconbridge and Miss Julia Neilson as Constance, is pronounced
"a superb revival," but the English version of _Cyrano de Bergerac_
failed to convert _Punch_ to the majority view, though he now admitted
that the piece contained brilliant poetry. He preferred Wyndham to
Coquelin, but liked neither of them in the title _rôle_, and he sums up
by declaring the piece to be a fine dramatic poem _not_ to be acted,
but read. Still, _Punch_ was never wholly insular or inaccessible to
new and foreign influences. He describes in 1900 how an enthusiastic
friend accosted him in broken Anglo-Italian and swept him off to see
Mme. Duse in the Italian version of _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_.
_Punch_ began by scoffing at the grotesque costumes of the cast, but
succumbed to the magic of this wonderful actress, who owed nothing to
physique, discarded all make-up, even in a part where artificiality was
in keeping with the character, and triumphed by sheer force of genius.
[Illustration: CONVERSATIONALIST: "Do you play Ping-Pong?"
ACTOR: "No, I play _Hamlet_!"]
The vogue of musical comedy was now at its height. _Punch_ has some
amusing suggestions in 1900 for adapting _The School for Scandal_ and
Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's _Mrs. Dane's Defence_ to suit the fashion of
the hour, with appropriate casts, including Dan Leno and Miss Marie
Lloyd. His rhymed extravaganza on "The Evolution of Musical Comedy"
accurately describes the prevalent method in this quatrain:--
In musical comedy books
(Chiefly frivol and froth)
You do not spoil the broth
By employing a number of cooks.
With the opening of the new century, the "poetic drama" was revived
with a certain measure of success by the production of Mr. Stephen
Phillips's plays. Mr. Phillips had graduated as an actor, but _Punch_
found him lacking in the theatrical sense, while acknowledging the pomp
and pageantry of his verse. _Herod_, with Sir Herbert Tree in the title
_rôle_, is condemned for its repulsive realism, and the lack of any
character that engaged sympathy. The notice of _Paolo and Francesca_ in
1902 is long, critical and by no means unfriendly, but the resultant
impression is of "a negative achievement" in which the purple patches
failed to redeem the lack of consistent characterization or of
stage-craft. Mr. Henry Ainley is mentioned, but without any recognition
of the qualities which have since earned for him distinction and
popularity. _Nero_, by the same author, produced in 1906, is described
as "out-heroding _Herod_." There were many fine lines but little
dramatic action. _Punch_ praises Miss Constance Collier as Poppaea,
but cannot take the part seriously. "She looked the Roman lady, played
the unfaithful wife, and died effectively as an invalid after a long
and inexplicable illness. Perhaps she was poisoned. Nero knows; nobody
else does except, perhaps, Mr. Stephen Phillips." Tree's make-up as
Nero was most artistic, but he had not one really fine scene given him;
Mrs. Tree was an admirable Agrippina; but _Punch_ was not thrilled by
the final conflagration, which he describes as a "weird, maniacal but
dramatically unsatisfactory finish."
[Sidenote: _Barrie and Shaw_]
Meanwhile Sir James Barrie and Mr. Bernard Shaw were coming along with
leaps and bounds, but neither of them owed much to _Punch_ in the early
years of the century. He had nothing but praise for H. B. Irving's
acting in _The Admirable Crichton_, but it was a triumph for the actor
rather than the playwright. The hero was "a perplexing creation," and
the play "a queer mixture of comedy, extravaganza, farce and tragedy."
Even less sympathetic was the first notice of _Peter Pan_, in 1905. As
_Punch_ had detected resemblances to _The Overland Route_ and _Foul
Play_ in _The Admirable Crichton_, so he now found reminiscences of
_Peter Schlemihl_ and _Snowdrop_ in the new play. For the rest, he
could find little either to amuse or that could even be acknowledged
as new or original in the extravaganza. He could not even tell whether
the children present enjoyed it. _Punch_ acknowledges that Barrie was
the pet of the critics, and congratulates him on having his pieces
perfectly acted by first-rate comedians. He frankly admits that he
(_Punch_) was in the minority. A year later _Peter Pan_ is recognized
as a popular favourite in a much more sympathetic notice. Mr. Shaw was
a much tougher morsel to digest, but here, too, one notes a progressive
appreciation from the days when _Punch_ pronounced _Man and Superman_
to be "unpresentable," not on moral grounds, but because it was not
a mirror of humanity in point either of character or action. Similar
reserves are expressed in the notice of _The Doctor's Dilemma_ in 1906.
The general verdict is summed up in the epigram that "unfortunately,
by steady abuse of it, Mr. Shaw has long ago forfeited his claim to be
taken seriously." Yet the play contains "some very excellent phagocytes
which enjoy a strong numerical advantage over its malevolent germs."
So, again, _Cæsar and Cleopatra_, while affording in many ways a
rare intellectual entertainment, was spoiled by the author's passion
for being instructive; the piece fell between two stools, for it was
neither frankly sacrilegious nor purely serious.
The ingenious burlesque account of an imaginary meeting of "The Decayed
Drama and Submerged Stage Rescue Society" in 1903 is in the main
hostile to the societies which confined their activities to the revival
of old plays that failed to attract the general public. But _Punch_
was by no means enamoured of all the manifestations of modernity, and
the rumour in 1906 that Mr. Seymour Hicks was going to produce a
musical comedy based on _As You Like It_ prompted a diverting retort
in _Punch's_: "As We Certainly Don't Like It, a Musical Comedy in Two
Acts, by Hicks von Rubenstammer and William Shakespeare."
_Punch_ adds the note:--
"Great care has been taken to follow the usual musical-comedy plan of
making the Second Act even worse than the first."
His success may be judged by the extract that follows:--
ACT II
_A wild place in Shepherd's Bush_
_Enter the melancholy_ JAMES (_footman to the banished_
DUKE) _with one or two Lords, like Bushmen_.
_James_ [_looking at his watch_]:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And thereby hangs a song.
[_Sings it._]
[_Mr. Punch_: Excuse me a moment, but is this Act _very_ bad?
_Mr. Hicks von Rubenstammer_: Very bad indeed.
_Mr. Punch_: Personally I fear that I shall not be able to survive it.
_Mr. H. v. R._: Oh, two or three of us will re-write it after the
first night, you know.
_Mr. Punch_: Then by all means let us wait for that occasion.]
Irving had met with various vicissitudes of criticism at _Punch's_
hands during his career. But latterly admiration prevailed, and, when
the end came, real affection shines through the brief memorial quatrain
printed in October, 1905:--
Ring down the curtain, for the play is done.
Let the brief lights die out, and darkness fall.
Yonder to that real life he has his call;
And the loved face beholds the Eternal Sun.
[Sidenote: _Ellen Terry's Jubilee_]
Irving, as _Punch_ noted in his review of Mr. Bram Stoker's Life, was
if possible more loved by his company than by the idolizing public. The
financial misfortunes which dogged the last years of his life were due
more to bad luck than bad management, and did not impair his serenity.
He died in harness, and there was more tragedy in the latter years
of his contemporary and friend, the famous and prosperous comedian J.
L. Toole, for they were clouded by bereavement as well as infirmity;
and _Punch's_ farewell to his friend in July, 1906, emphasizes the
contrast:--
While Summer's laughter thrills the golden air,
Come, gently lay within the lap of earth
This heart that loved to let us share its mirth
But bore alone the sorrow none might share.
[Illustration: FIFTY YEARS A QUEEN
(_An Author's Tribute._)
(A scheme is on foot for presenting a National Tribute to Miss Ellen
Terry on April 28, the fiftieth anniversary of her first appearance on
the stage.)]
Ellen Terry's Jubilee in the same year was honoured in a cartoon;
but a new and formidable rival to the Muses of legitimate Comedy and
Tragedy reared its menacing head in the following year. The visit of
the _Grand Guignol_ to London in 1907 inspired a prophetic fantasy on
the new cult of "Shrieks and Shudders" which has been easily eclipsed
by the realities of the Little Theatre. As I write these lines the
leading serious weekly, among "Plays worth seeing," includes the
"unabated horrors" of the London Grand Guignol. I have spoken elsewhere
of the dancing mania. In 1909 the _furore_ excited by Miss Maud Allan
led to the following squib in which burlesque is mingled with caustic
ridicule:--
HER RETURN
_Being a wholly imaginative anticipation of the Proceedings at the
Palace on the historic night._
... Before the dancing began an ode to the artiste from the emotional
pen of Sir Ernest Cassel was read by Sir John Fisher, containing these
memorable lines:--
Barefooted Bacchanal, would that I were Kipling
To celebrate thy marvellous arm-rippling!
... The new dances were four in number, and in them She personated in
turn Pharaoh's Daughter in her famous fandango known tastefully as the
Bull Rush; Jephthah's Daughter in her final macabre Hebrew fling, on
hearing of her father's vow and her own fate; Uriah's wife in her _pas
de liberté_ after the battle; and Jezebel in her defiant tarantella
before a waxen Elijah--all new and all marvellously restrained (not
only in dress) and full of scriptural tact.... At the end of the turn
the applause lasted fourteen minutes, and She was led on eleven times.
Free restoratives were then distributed in the theatre, ambulances
removed those admirers who were too far gone to remain any longer, and
the programme proceeded. Late at night She was drawn to her residence
at Frognal in a carriage from which the horses had been removed, the
Prime Minister, Mr. Walkley, Mr. Alfred Butt and a number of other
talented gentlemen taking their places. Never was there such a triumph.
[Sidenote: _The "Follies"_]
Happily there were antidotes to the plague of Biblical Bacchanals;
none better than that supplied for several seasons by the late Mr.
Pélissier and his "Follies," to whom _Punch_ expressed his gratitude
in 1910. It was a "priceless" entertainment, with its "Potted
Plays," admirable burlesques of the music-hall stage, opera, the
Russian ballet, and on occasion, as in "Everybody's Benefit," really
acute satire of the histrionic temperament. "The Follies" have had
reincarnations and successors and imitators, but _Punch's_ doggerel
is not a bad picture of the troupe at its best, before the late Miss
Gwennie Mars left them, and when Mr. Lewis Sydney, Mr. Dan Everard, Mr.
Morris Harvey, and Miss Muriel George contributed nightly to the gaiety
of the London public:--
When life seems drear and hollow,
When Fortune wears a frown,
I haste to the Apollo
And plank my dollar down.
Outside the tempest vollies
Against uplifted brollies;
I care not, for "the Follies"
Are back in London town.
Pélissier, prince of "Potters,"
You earn our grateful thanks,
You and your fellow plotters--
Co-partners in your pranks--
For slating smart inanity,
Or Fashion's last insanity,
Or histrionic vanity,
Or madness _à la_ Manx.
From introspective thinking
In every minor key,
Good Sydney, grimly blinking,
You set my spirit free.
If laughing makes one fatter,
Then listening to your patter,
O very harebrained hatter,
Has added pounds to me.
Nor must my brief laudations
Omit the genial Dan,
Or Harvey's imitations
Framed on a novel plan,
Or Ben, that priceless super
Moustachioed like a trooper,
Who plays like Margaret Cooper
Were she a Superman.
'Twould need the fire of Uriel
To hymn your female stars
For Muriel's most Mercurial
And Gwennie's surnamed Mars.
O Gwennie, you're a miracle
Of mimicry satirical,
Yet when your mood is lyrical
There's not a note that jars.
The "Follies" were benefactors; their satire was in the main most
genial; and they did not cause their audiences "furiously to think."
These aims accorded largely with _Punch's_ own conception of the
function of public entertainers; none the less in his later years
he was by no means antagonistic to the serious drama. In 1907 Mr.
Galsworthy's _Strife_ is welcomed as a great play, greatly acted.
_Punch's_ dramatic critic has nothing but praise for it, though he
did not think that the author bothered about a moral. It was his
business to make other people uncomfortable, to make them think and "do
something." "If _Strife_ has a moral it is simply that the problem of
Capital and Labour will have to be settled."
[Illustration: THE ENEMY THAT WAS
CHORUS OF MUSIC-HALL ARTISTS: "Glad you're one of us now, Sir
Beerbohm."]
_Punch_ still intermittently bewailed the decline of the Harlequinade.
His Lament for King Pantomime in 1910 was based on an article in
the _Daily Telegraph_ welcoming the beneficent revolution which had
substituted _Peter Pan_ for the old Christmas carnival of Clown and
Pantaloon. At the same time _Punch_ had himself become more than
reconciled to the new children's idol and had compared Maeterlinck's
_Blue Bird_ unfavourably with the perennial Peter. The competition
of the film play had not yet become acute, and the Music-Hall, which
_Punch_ had so frequently and even fiercely assailed in its earlier
phases, was now a formidable and fashionable rival of the theatre.
In 1908 Harry Lauder's salary, alleged to average £250 a week, is
compared with that of the Lord Chancellor. There was no longer any
talk of "indignity" in appearing on the boards of the variety stage,
and _Punch_ notices Sarah Bernhardt's appearance at the Coliseum, in
1910, as putting the crown on the new movement, and providing the Halls
with their apotheosis, for she was "still the greatest star in the
Thespian firmament." Her "turn" was in the second Act of _L'Aiglon_;
the only other feature in the programme that called for notice was the
performance of the "Balalaika Orchestra"; the rest of the "artists"
were "very small minnows alongside of this great Tritoness." The
"divine Sarah" could do no wrong, but, when Sir Herbert Tree appeared
in the Halls, in 1911, _Punch's_ cartoon was certainly not honorific.
Nor is the note of "indignity" altogether lacking in the dialogue
between the two knockabout comedians in Mr. Townsend's picture in
1912:--
FIRST MUSIC-HALL ARTIST (_watching Mr. J. M. Barrie's "The
Twelve Pound Look" from the wings_): "I like this yer sketch; the
patter's so good. 'Oo wrote it?"
SECOND M.-H. A.: "Bloke called Barrie, I think."
FIRST M.-H. A.: "Arst for 'is address. 'E writes our next."
The "Balalaika Orchestra," by the way, was a minor sign of the Russian
invasion already at its height. Miss Maud Allan had been unfavourably
received in 1909 in Manchester, and about the same time the Chicago
"Wheat King," Mr. Patten, had been mobbed on the Manchester Exchange,
and _Punch_ ingeniously "synthesised" the two events in the following
stanza:
The types that make the market mad
No doubt inspire the self-same loathing
In spots that spin, as those whose fad
Is chucking up all kinds of clothing.
[Sidenote: _The March of Music_]
The Russian Ballet was a very different thing from the poses and
wrigglings of barefooted Bacchantes, and _Punch_ became lyrical in
his eulogies of these "spring-heeled Jacks and Jills." The exquisite
romance and fantasy of "The Spectre of the Rose," the "Carnival" and
the "Sylphides" were a revelation to those who, like Carlyle, only saw
in the old opera-ballet the conversion of the human frame into a pair
of animated compasses.
The Russian Ballet furnished _Punch_ in his almanack for 1913 with an
excellent formula for caricatures of the idols and butts of the hour,
but his admiration for the originals was sincere.
In the years immediately preceding the war the cinema demands an
evergrowing if not altogether appreciative attention. _Punch_ pays a
left-handed compliment to the versatility of the film actor, but very
properly satirizes the extraordinary representations of English life
and dress in the foreign films produced for the English market. The
invasion of Debrett by chorus girls, recorded in October 1913, is an
old story, but if Punch is to be trusted had then reached dimensions
unparalleled in the annals of aristocratic condescension.
MUSIC
Music has been called "the youngest of the arts" in view of the fact
that, as we now understand it in the Western world, it dates roughly
from the year 1600. But the "heavenly maid" had already ceased to be
the Cinderella of the Muses, though still condemned in restaurants
and places where they feed to the menial function of acting as an
_obbligato_ accompaniment to conversation, deglutition, and digestion.
A pessimistic observer remarked about fifteen years ago that modern
life bade fair to be dominated by music and machinery, and the
correlation of the two factors has since been abundantly illustrated
by the momentous development of the gramophone and the pianola, the
cult of "sonority" and the dynamics of the orchestra. When to these
influences are added the successive experiments in harmony and tonality
and rhythm associated with the names of Strauss and Debussy, Scriabine
and Stravinsky, Ravel and Schönberg, one cannot deny that the ferment
in letters has been more than matched by the exuberant activities of
musical modernists. In the period under review the "whole tone scale"
was partially acclimatized and "rag-time" was domesticated, Wagner
ceased to be regarded as an anarch of discord, and the "Music of the
Future" became the music of the past. It was no longer a guarantee
of enlightenment to worship Brahms or admire Beethoven. Of the three
"B's" Bach alone has maintained his prestige, and to-day counts upon
the allegiance of all schools. Otherwise, and in spite of the renown
of Strauss, Germany ceased to exercise her old musical supremacy,
and, even before the war, Russia, France and Italy had entered into a
formidable competition with the "predominant partner" in the domain
of opera. And though opera is an artificial blend of incompatibles
and must always remain on a lower plane than abstract or absolute
music--the most transcendental thing in the whole range of art--it
claims priority of notice in this record for two sufficient reasons:
its social prestige and the amount of space devoted to it by _Punch_.
Wagner's operas were now established in the Covent Garden repertory,
and as I have already noticed, their new-found and fashionable
popularity was largely due to the appeal of the great singers, notably
Jean and Edouard de Reszke and Mlle. Ternina, who proved that Wagnerian
melody was all the more effective when sung beautifully and not
declaimed or barked as by so many German singers. Moreover when, as in
the artists mentioned, this vocal lustre was combined with a splendid
presence, dignity of bearing, and dramatic intelligence, the appeal
was well-nigh irresistible. I insert the qualification advisedly on
behalf of _Punch_ who, in these years at any rate, was never reconciled
to Wagner, and when he heard Jean de Reszke and his brother in the
_Meistersinger_ in 1897 could not refrain from jocular disparagement of
the score.
[Sidenote: _Foreign Stars and Native Composers_]
Verdi's _Falstaff_ had been produced in 1894, but _Punch_ abstains
from any criticism of that exhilarating work, merely pronouncing the
performance a success, and a few years later further advertised his
inability to recognize the supreme achievements of the later Verdi by
declaring that _Otello_ as an opera was "heavy." In opera he was in
the main an inveterate _laudator temporis acti_ and chiefly enjoyed
himself when opportunities arose for indulging in alliterative quips
such as "merry Mancinelli," "beaming Bevignani," or puns on the
name of the performers, e.g. "Mlle. Bauermeister-singer." Puccini's
operas--_Manon_, _La Bohême_ and _Madama Butterfly_--found favour
in his sight; they had sparkle, elegance and _brio_. But he was
not impressed with _La Tosca_, holding that the "operaticizing" of
successful plays was a mistake; in general his notices are void of
musical criticism and only deal with the singing of Melba and Caruso
and the admirable Destinn. Still _Punch_ had lucid intervals of
vision when he saw a good or great thing and praised it handsomely.
The Santuzza of Calvé, in 1894, was "grand and magnificent" and her
Carmen "marvellous" and unique. The epithets were fully deserved, but
_Punch_ acutely detected that this great artist and actress suffered
from the excess of her qualities, and wittily described her Marguerite
in _Faust_ as "a _Mädchen_ with a past." Madame Patti's reappearance
in opera in 1895 after many years' absence was genially welcomed, none
the less so for her choice of _La Traviata_ for her _rentrée_, for
_Punch_ was faithful to his old operatic loves. In the next few years
English opera and operatic composers claimed _Punch's_ attention. The
scheme of a National Opera House was revived in 1899 when _Punch_
represented Music petitioning the L.C.C. for a site, but the sinews
of war were not forthcoming. Sir Charles Stanford's _Much Ado about
Nothing_, the libretto adapted from Shakespeare by Mr. Julian Sturgis,
with Miss Marie Brema, Miss Suzanne Adams, Mr. David Bispham and M.
Plançon in the cast, was pronounced "an undisputed success" in 1901.
In 1902 there were two native novelties. In Mr. Herbert Bunning's
_Princesse Osra_, founded on "Anthony Hope's" novel, _Punch_ found
little scope for positive praise: it was "musically disappointing
save for accidental reminiscences." Nor was he much more enthusiastic
over Miss Ethel Smyth's _Der Wald_, with its lurid plot "of the penny
plain, twopence coloured type" and "interminable duets." Over one stage
direction, "Peasants turn pale," _Punch_ waxed ribald, and he concludes
his notice with the ambiguous sentence: "Miss Smyth was acclaimed
vociferously, the Duke of Connaught and the occupants of the Royal box
testifying their great pleasure at what may come to be, after judicious
elimination, a satisfactory success." The first of the _Salomes_
who de-decorated the lyric and variety stages was not Strauss's but
Massenet's version, produced in the summer of 1903. Mme. Calvé was
in the cast, but the opera provided no scope for her genius, and
_Punch_ damned it with faint praise as not likely to be retained in the
repertory, a very safe prediction. In the summary of the season _Punch_
puts Richter at the head of the successes, a well-merited recognition
of his direction of the Wagner performances; the list of "stars"
includes the "two Vans"--Van Rooy, the Dutch baritone, and Van Dyck,
the Dutch tenor--Destinn, Calvé and Melba, Caruso and Plançon. In the
winter the San Carlo troupe from Naples visited London, with Sammarco
and Caruso--or Robinson Caruso, as _Punch_ liked to call him--as the
chief male singers, but no new operas were produced. _André Chénier_
in 1907 is described as of the _Tosca_ or lurid type. A new hand is
observable in the notice which acknowledges an unexpected dignity
and refinement in Caruso's always brilliant singing and pronounces
Destinn "adorable." Wagner's star was still in the ascendant in 1908,
and Richter's splendid conducting of the Tetralogy is commemorated in
the cartoon of Hans the _Ring_-master; while the "record operatic
duel" between Melba and Tetrazzini is similarly honoured a little
later. Never before, unless I am much mistaken, had two cartoons with
a musical motive appeared in the same year. In 1910 Strauss was the
grand and conspicuous portent of the operatic world, for _Elektra_,
was produced in the spring and _Salome_ in the winter. The former
was hailed by _Punch_ as a supreme manifestation of the _Maladie de
Siècle_. His verses are quoted not for their literary merit so much
as because they are a fairly compendious record of the fashions and
foibles of "England de luxe" at the time:--
[Sidenote: _"Elektra" and "Salome"_]
O sons of the new generation
Athirst for inordinate thrills;
O daughters, whose love of sensation
Is shown in your frocks and your frills--
Come, faithfully answer my queries
If you would completely assuage
The passionate craving that wearies
Both sinner and sage.
Has Ibsen no power to excite you?
Can't Maeterlinck make you applaud?
Do dancers no longer delight you,
Who wriggle about _à la_ Maud?
Are you tired of the profile of Ainley?
The tender falsetto of Tree?
Do you envy each bonnet insanely
That harbours a bee?
Is the Metchnikoff treatment a failure?
Do you weep when you miss your short putts?
Have you ceased with enjoyment to hail your
Diurnal allowance of nuts?
Are you bored by the leaders of Spender?
Or cloyed by the pathos of Caine?
Do you find that "The Follies" engender
A feeling of _gêne_?
Are you sick of Sicilian grimaces?
Unattracted by Chantecler hats?
Are you weary of Marathon races
And careless in choosing your spats?
Are you jaded with aeroplaning
And sated with social reform?
Apathetic alike when it's raining
And when it is warm?
Do you shy at the strains that are sober?
Does Wagner no longer inflame?
Do you find that the music of Auber
And Elgar is equally tame?
Do you read without blushing or winking
The novels of Elinor Glyn?
Do you constantly hanker, when rinking,
For draughts of sloe gin?
If I am correct in divining
The tortures you daily endure,
Don't waste any time in repining,
But try this infallible cure:
With the sharpest of musical _plectra_
Go pluck at your soul till it's raw;
In a word, go and witness _Elektra_--
Give up the jig-saw.
[Illustration: STARS IN OPPOSITION; OR, THE "RECORD" OPERATIC DUEL]
_Salome_, so far as the book was concerned, was a tertiary deposit.
Heine, in a few masterly stanzas in his fantastic narrative poem _Atta
Troll_, tells the old legend of the unholy love of the daughter of
Herodias for John the Baptist. Therein may be found the essence of
Wilde's play, adapted to form the libretto of the opera. _Punch_, who
attended the dress rehearsal, gives an interesting account of his
experiences, but shirks the task of criticizing the opera: for that,
as he observes, "no vocabulary could be too large or peculiar." But
he mentions one orchestral interlude, in which "there was one sound,
painfully iterated, like the chirrup of a sick hen, which appeared to
come from some part of the violin that is usually left alone." At the
close of June, 1914, Strauss's _Légende de Joseph_ was produced at
Covent Garden by Sir Thomas Beecham with the Russian Ballet. _Punch_
abstained from detailed musical criticism, but condemned the "vulgar
animalism" of the piece which he regarded as "a false move in every
way," and his view cannot be laid down to prudery or Philistinism,
since it was shared by many of the most devoted admirers of Strauss.
Nor can he be charged with a wholesale depreciation of German music
in view of the tribute to Humperdinck's _Hänsel und Gretel_, which
appeared in his pages a few months earlier:--
[Sidenote: _Homage to Humperdinck_]
How strange that modern Germany, so gruesome in her Art,
Where sheer sardonic satire has expelled the human heart,
Should also be the Germany that gives us, to our joy,
The perfect children's opera--pure gold without alloy.
I know there are admirers of the super-normal Strauss
Who hold him, matched with others, as a mammoth to a mouse,
And, though they often feel obliged his lapses to deplore,
His "cerebral significance" increasingly adore.
In parts I find him excellent, just like the curate's egg,
But not when he is pulling the confiding public's leg;
Besides, the height of genius I never could explain
As "an infinite capacity for giving others pain."
No, give to me my Engelbert, my gentle Humperdinck,
Whose cerebral development is void of any kink;
Who represents in music, in the most enchanting light,
That good old German quality, to wit _Gemüthlichkeit_.
I love his gift of melody, now homely in its vein,
Now rising, as befits his theme, to the celestial plane;
I love the rich orchestral tide that carries you along;
I love the cunning counterpoint that underpins the song.
Though scientific pedagogues that golden realm have banned,
He leads us back by pleasant paths to childhood's fairyland,
Till, bald and grey and middle-aged, we watch with childish glee
The very games we learned long since at our dead mother's knee.
* * * * *
There's not a bar of _Hänsel's_ part that's not exactly right;
There's not a note from _Gretel_ that's not a pure delight;
And having heard it lately for (I think) the fifteenth time,
I know I'm talking reason though it happens to be rhyme.
Then let us thank our lucky stars that in a squalid age,
When horror, blood, and ugliness so many pens engage,
One of our master-minstrels, by fashion unbeguiled,
Keeps the unclouded vision of a tender-hearted child.
The sequel is curious, for while the gentle Humperdinck signed the
anti-British manifesto issued at the outbreak of the War by leading
German professors, men of science and artists, the name of Strauss was
conspicuously absent. And as I write Strauss, middle-aged and grey, is
revisiting London and, no longer in the van of musical progress, is
regarded by our emancipated critics not exactly as a "back number" but
certainly as very far from being the "Mad Mullah" of music. Even before
the War German operatic music had been superseded in popularity by the
Russian school. In June, 1914, Moussorgsky's _Boris Godounov_ was the
great feature of the season, and to this, as to Borodine's _Prince
Igor_, Chaliapine, in _Punch's_ phrase, "brought that gift of the great
manner, that ease and splendour of bearing, and those superb qualities
of voice which, found together, give him a place apart from his kind."
In the domain of light and comic opera the severance of the Gilbert
and Sullivan partnership, though a personal reconciliation was
effected, was final so far as collaboration was concerned. Composer
and librettist both formed new or renewed old associations--Gilbert
with Cellier in _The Mountebanks_, and Sullivan with Burnand in _The
Chieftain_--but without repeating their old triumphs. When Sullivan
died in 1900 his services to art and humanity are read aright in
_Punch's_ memorial stanzas:--
In the immortal music rolled from earth
He was content to claim a lowly part,
Yet leaves us purer by the grace and mirth,
Human, that cling about the common heart.
Now on the bound of Music's native sphere,
Whereof he faintly caught some earthward strain,
At length he reads the "_Golden Legend_" clear,
At length the "_Lost Chord_" finds itself again.
[Illustration: SIXTY YEARS OF "PROGRESS"]
In musical comedy the high-water mark of popularity was attained by
_The Geisha_ in 1896, but though _Punch_ speaks handsomely of Mr.
Jones's tuneful numbers--as they deserved--he makes it clear that the
success of the piece was chiefly due to the talent and humour of the
performers--Marie Tempest and Letty Lind; Monkhouse, Huntley Wright
and Hayden Coffin. In 1907 the devastating popularity of _The Merry
Widow_ amounted, in _Punch's_ view, as expressed in his "Dirge" on the
waltz of that name, to a tyranny rather than a delight; and in the
spring of 1913 he was moved to protest, in the name of Music, against
the wholesale importation of American coon songs, "Hitchy Koo!" and
rag-time generally.
In the middle 'nineties the banjo was still fashionable, and the
amateur singer a source of grief and wonderment to _Punch_:--
WHY DOST THOU SING?
Why dost thou sing? Is it because thou deemest
We love to hear thy sorry quavers ring?
My poor deluded girl, thou fondly dreamest!
Why dost thou sing?
Why dost thou sing? I ask thy sad relations--
They shake their heads, and answer with a sigh.
They can explain thy wild hallucinations
No more than I.
Why dost thou sing? Why wilt thou never weary?
Why wilt thou warble half a note too flat?
I can conceive no reasonable theory
To tell me that.
Why dost thou sing? O Lady, have we ever
In thought or action done thee any wrong?
Then wherefore should'st thou visit us for ever
With thy one song?
_Punch_ gave it up; but in 1910 he declared that "one of the finest
efforts accomplished by the gramophone has been the obliteration of the
inferior amateur singer."
[Sidenote: _Pioneers and Prodigies_]
The musical education of the million advanced apace. No more potent
agency for the diffusion of a taste for orchestral music has existed
in our times than the Promenade Concerts, directed since 1895 by
Sir Henry Wood. The creation of this new audience is described with
sympathy and delightful humour in _The Promenade Ticket_ by the late
and deeply lamented Arthur Hugh Sidgwick. While recognizing these new
and beneficent activities, _Punch_ did not forget the splendid pioneer
work done by forerunners--notably Sir August Manns, whose seventieth
birthday in 1895 is affectionately celebrated in punning verse. The
action of the L.C.C. in 1897, which threatened to put a stop to the
Queen's Hall Sunday Concerts, reawakened _Punch's_ anti-Sabbatarian
zeal. Not much account is taken of serious native composers, but the
rise of Elgar's "star" is acknowledged as early as 1904 in the picture
of Richter conducting _The Dream of Gerontius_.
[Illustration: A SHOW OF HANS
(Richter interprets Elgar's _Dream_.)]
In 1903 _Punch_ was seriously perturbed by the glut of prodigies, and
in a cartoon addresses the child violinist, "Get thee to a _nursery_.
Go!" Yet in 1905, though "not as a rule favourably inclined to infant
phenomena," he makes an exception in favour of the thirteen-year-old
Mischa Elman. In 1908, in a burlesque account of "A Day in the Life of
a Strenuous Statesman," the diarist records his reply to a Socialist
Member that "the Government would think not once but twice before they
refused to grant special pensions to the parents of infant prodigies
earning less than £5,000 a year." On the compulsory musical teaching
of the ingenuous youth _Punch_ held views which may be gathered from
his picture in 1911 of the unhappy small boy at the pianoforte, with
the legend: "The only thing that comes between us, Mother, is this
wretched music!" While _Punch_ was benevolent to the little musician,
he was decidedly hostile to the cult of bigness in musical scores and
instrumentation, and more than once assails the prevalent "Jumbomania"
as illustrated by huge bands and the extravagant explosion of all the
sonorities. When Strauss in 1903 was the _dernier cri_ of modernism,
_Punch_ addressed him in perversion of a much-parodied model:--
O teach us that Discord is duty,
That Melody maketh for sin:
Come down and redeem us from Beauty,
Great Despot of Din.
[Sidenote: _Elegies and Eulogies_]
[Illustration: _PLAY'S_ THE THING!
HAMLET (_Mr. Punch_) to OPHIDLIA (the Danish infant
musical prodigy): "Get thee to a _nursery_. Go!"]
Many heroes and heroines of the Victorian musical world passed away
in these years. I have already spoken of Sullivan, but may note the
tribute to Rubinstein in 1894 and the song to Sims Reeves in 1895,
in which _Punch_, who had on occasion handled him severely for his
failures to fulfil his engagements, was now only concerned to chronicle
the triumphs, in ballad and oratorio, of "the king of the tenor tribe"
who had fallen in old age on evil days. Sims Reeves, when well over
seventy, had been reduced to singing in the Music-Halls, and in 1897
_Punch_ cordially supported the appeal for funds issued by the _Daily
Telegraph_. The results of this public subscription, supplemented by a
Civil List pension, helped to relieve his few remaining years.
Corney Grain's death in 1895 removed the most popular musical
"entertainer" of the time. _Punch_, in his farewell salute, gave him
the highest possible praise by describing him as having successfully
succeeded to John Parry. In 1896 _Punch_ bestowed the bâton of musical
Field-Marshal on Lieut. Dan Godfrey on his retirement from the post of
bandmaster to the Grenadier Guards, which he had held for fifty years.
Dan Godfrey was the first bandmaster who ever held a commission in the
army, and had rendered conspicuous service to the cause of military
music. _Punch's_ honour was well merited, and Dan Godfrey's son, Dan
the Second, conductor of the admirable Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra
for nearly thirty years, has added fresh lustre to the family name. In
the same year _Punch_ records the presentation, at Marlborough House,
of a testimonial to Lady Hallé (Madame Norman Néruda). His account
of the proceedings border on the burlesque, but there is nothing but
admiration for the brilliant artist who had delighted British audiences
ever since the days of her _début_ as a prodigy nearly fifty years
before, and who had been one of the glories of the "Pops" in their
golden prime. Nor did _Punch_ forget to add his congratulations to
Henry Bird when that fine artist, respected and loved by all who knew
him, celebrated his Jubilee in 1910:--
Minstrels, like bards, are irritable folk
Whom trifles oft provoke
To sudden fury or unseemly tears;
But you, blithe spirit, from your earliest years
Have been undeviatingly urbane,
Free from all frills, considerate, courteous, sane,
And to the end will so remain.
Wherefore, with deepest reverence imbued
For your supreme pianofortitude,
And by melodious memories rarely stirred,
_Punch_ hails your Jubilee, O tuneful Bird!
The author of those lines, on another occasion, rendered Mr. Bird a
serious disservice. _A propos_ of the invasion of the Music-Halls by
serious performers, he had published a purely fictitious announcement
that Mr. Henry Bird would shortly appear on the Variety stage as
"The Terrible Transposer"--an allusion to his notorious skill in
that direction. This was copied into the parish magazine of St.
Mary Abbot's, Kensington, where Mr. Bird had been for many years
organist, but the editor's ironical comment was misinterpreted, and
the announcement was taken seriously, with the result that Mr. Bird
was bombarded with inquiries from applicants for the post. A man with
a less angelic temper would have been annoyed; but Mr. Bird was only
amused.
SPORT AND PASTIME
The chronicles of sport and pastime from the early 'nineties down
to the outbreak of the War are one long and instructive commentary
on the old saying that in the long run the pupil always beats his
master. At the opening of this period, though assailed in the domain
of athletic sports by the Americans, and in that of cricket by the
Australians, Great Britain still led the world in games and most
forms of sport. At its close there was no form of organized physical
effort, whether individual or collective, in which we had not been
effectively challenged or defeated by the superior skill or endurance
of competitors from overseas. In cricket, football, rowing, golf, polo,
yachting, lawn tennis and boxing, we had met our match and more than
our match; and the insular complacency which prevailed in the 'nineties
had given place in certain minds to a mood of depression, made vocal in
the Duke of Westminster's letter to _The Times_ in the autumn of 1913,
in which he described our failure to take the Olympic games seriously
and the loss of championships as "a national disaster." In the interval
sport and pastime had become an international preoccupation. _Punch_ in
earlier years had been strongly in favour of international contests as
a means of promoting international good will. He was not so certain on
this point by 1913, but it is to his credit that he viewed the whole
subject in its true perspective, recognizing that the spirit in which a
game was played was a truer test of sportsmanship than the achievement
of success; that the best sportsmen were "good losers"; and, above
all, that national efficiency did not vary directly with the number of
athletic championships collected by the nation. As early as 1892 these
principles emerge in his reference to a boat-race at Andrésy on the
Seine, when the English crew were defeated by the French. The title of
the verses, "Froggie would a-rowing go," is not promising but their
spirit is excellent:--
For in spite of the brag and the bounce and the chaff,
Heigho for Rowing!
The Frog beat the Bull by a length and a half,
With your Mossop and James, licked by Boudin and Cuzin,
Heigho! says R. C. Lehmann!
So in 1893 he hailed the appearance of the French crew at Henley:--
_Punch_ greets you with cheers, may your shades ne'er diminish,
Though you row forty-four from the start to the finish.
Only friendship could result from such contests. At the same time,
in "The British Athlete's Vade-Mecum," he rebukes his countrymen's
contempt for the foreigner's idea of sport. When Oxford beat Yale in
the inter-University sports in 1894, _Punch_ was wise enough to foresee
that the triumph was not final:--
Come again, Yale, come again, and again;
Victors or vanquished such visits aren't vain.
One of these days you will probably nick us.
We don't crow when we lick; we won't cry when you lick us!
A similar spirit animates the cartoon on the Cambridge and Harvard
boat-race in 1906, in which Father Thames, as "The Jolly Waterman,"
takes pride in both crews, while the accompanying verses on "Light Blue
and Crimson" emphasize that _camaraderie_ of rowing which the writer,
"R. C. L.," did so much to foster. The races for the America Cup
were, in their earlier stages, when Lord Dunraven was the challenger,
more productive of friction than cordiality. Sir Thomas Lipton's
indefatigable persistence in his efforts to "lift the Cup" from 1901
onward does not pass unacknowledged, but _Punch's_ consolation is not
free from irony:--
Bear up, Sir T.; remember Bruce's spider;
Build further _Shamrocks_ through the coming-years;
Virtue like yours, though long retirement hide her,
Ends in the House of Peers.
[Sidenote: _Cups, Championships and Olympic Games_]
So an element of ridicule is not wanting in the burlesque diaries
published in 1903 of "Lipton Day by Day" and "Lipton Minute by Minute,"
or in the mock-heroic cartoon of Sir Thomas as "The Last of the Vikings
and the First of the Tea-kings."
Lawn tennis in the middle 'nineties was still a predominantly British
pastime. In his account of the Northern Tournament in 1895 not a
single American or foreign competitor is named, and _Punch_ bewails
the absence of the old heroes, the Renshaws and Lawford, and the
defection of Miss Lottie Dod, who had already given up lawn tennis for
golf. In 1906 the prowess of Miss May Sutton, the American girl who
carried off the Ladies' Championship at Wimbledon, is celebrated in
eulogistic "Limericks." But it was still a far cry to the Wimbledon of
even seven years later, when French and German, as well as American
and Australian players, entered the arena. Uncle Sam had been busy
collecting championships in the interval, and in August, 1913,
_Punch_ represented him, carrying a model yacht, a tennis racket and
a polo stick (he might have added a golf club in view of Mr. Travis's
triumph at Sandwich in 1904), saying to a rather rueful-looking John
Bull in cricketing costume: "Say, John, what's this game, anyway?
Cricket? Well, see here; mail me a copy of the rules, with date of
next international championship. I'm just crazy on Cups." The Olympic
Games _furore_ left _Punch_ cold. The Duke of Westminster's letter on
the "national disaster" of 1912 prompts a satirical cartoon in which
John Bull, "prostrate with shame," remarks: "My place in the Council
of Europe may be higher than ever, but what's the use of that when
the Olympic palm for the kneeling high jump is borne by another?" The
"Olympic Catechism," published in the following number, is a bitter but
not wholly undeserved criticism of the spirit, organization and results
of these contests, and the evasion by their promoters of the difficulty
of discriminating between professionals and amateurs. To the question,
"How is the Olympic spirit acquired?" _Punch_ supplies the following
answer:--
_A._ By taking part in the Olympic games; by subscribing to the
Duke of Westminster's fund; by devoting oneself to the discovery of
champions; by advertising; by organizing a boom; by promising a
public reception to successful athletes; by paying their expenses;
by----
_Q._ I see. Then I suppose Great Britain has no athletics at present?
_A._ No, none of the right sort.
_Q._ What is the right sort?
_A._ The sort that is imbued with the Olympic spirit.
_Q._ Does everybody like the Olympic spirit?
_A._ Yes, everybody who is anybody.
_Q._ But if somebody says he dislikes it?
_A._ Then he is a crank.
_Q._ What is a crank?
_A._ One who has not got the Olympic spirit.
_Q._ Are the subscriptions coming in?
_A._ I refuse to answer further questions.
The search for Olympic talent inspired a succession of burlesque
pictures; and the fostering of the "Olympic Spirit" is reduced to
absurdity by the drawing of the lady presenting a classic wreath to the
winner of the sack-race in some village sports.
The introduction of base-ball in 1892 is chronicled pictorially in
a grotesque illustration of the attitudes of the players. But the
interest now taken in the game, and reflected in the publication of
"base-ball results" on the tape and in the sporting columns of the
Press, was essentially a post-war product. Cricket reigned paramount
in _Punch's_ affections, at any rate in the 'nineties. When Mr. C. I.
Thornton was presented with a silver trophy during the Scarborough Week
in 1894, as a memento of the great part he had taken in the Scarborough
Festival since its institution in 1869, _Punch_ paid lyrical homage
to "Buns," the "great slogger of sixes." The Preface to vol. cviii.
(1895) is headed by a picture of _Punch_, "W. G." and the shade of
Alfred Mynn. Reference is made in the text to the National Testimonial
to Grace which was got up this year, and _Punch_ suggests that "W. G."
ought to receive a knighthood. He was not alone in the suggestion, for
_The Times_ subsequently referred to "Dr. W. G. Grace, whose name has
been everywhere of late--except where it might well have been, in the
Birthday Honours List," and _Punch_ improved on the text in June:--
[Sidenote: _Gentleman and Players_]
True, _Thunderer_, true! He stands the test Unmatched, unchallengeable
Best At our best game! Requite him! For thirty years to hold first
place And still, unpassed, keep up the pace Pleases a stout,
sport-loving race. By Jove! "Sir William Gilbert Grace" Sounds
splendid. _Punch_ says, "_Knight him!_"
In the same summer "W. G." is glorified in "The Cricket Three":--
Men of one skill though varying in race,
Maclaren, Ranjitsinhji, Grand Old Grace.
Ranji was "champion cricketer" of the year in 1896, and _Punch_
indited an "Ode to the Black Prince" with a portrait by Sambourne.
Yet the cricket world was not without its frictions and difficulties.
In this year the professionals had claimed a higher rate of pay than
the regulation £10 for taking part in matches against Australia, and
_Punch_ intervenes in a cartoon in which he gives Grace, Abel and Trott
the toast of the Three F's--"Fair Play, Fair Pay and Friendliness."
_Punch_ a year earlier had congratulated the Committee of the Rugby
Union on their decision that "Professionalism was illegal," thus
showing their determination to "keep the ball out of the Moneygrub's
sordid slime." But while he deplored the prospect of strikes and
lock-outs in the cricket world, he clearly held that here, at any rate,
the status of the professional was securely established and deserved
considerate treatment. England won the rubber, rather unexpectedly,
in 1896, and _Punch_ singles out Grace, Peel, Hearne and Abel for
special honour. The English visiting team were defeated in Australia in
the winter of 1898, and _Punch_, in his "Eleven Little Reasons Why,"
genially satirizes those critics who tried to explain it away:--
Because of course they play cricket in Australia all the year round.
Because it was too hot for anything, and of course the English team
were unaccustomed to the heat.
Because there was a chapter of accidents from the first, and everyone
had bad luck.
Because the coin never would come down the right side on the top, and
consequently the British could not go in first.
Because the ground got hopelessly out of order by the time that the
first innings of the Australians was over.
Because the constant travelling and occasional _fêting_ were enough to
put everyone out of form.
Because there ought to have been more extra men to fill up the ranks
on emergencies.
Because at least one admirable cricketer was left at home whose
services on several occasions would have been invaluable.
Because the tea interval coming after the luncheon pause was confusing
to the Mother Countrymen.
Because the glorious uncertainty of cricket is proverbial, and success
may be deserved, but cannot on that account be always attained.
Lastly, and probably the right reason, because the other side had the
better men.
Loving cricket as he did _Punch_ was yet fully alive to the English
tendency to think that success with the bat or ball qualified a man
for anything, and made good capital out of a letter in _The Times_ in
1899, in which the writer, "LL.B. and M.A., London," had written of the
late Sir Michael Foster, then a candidate for the representation of the
University in Parliament: "Michael Foster was a capital cricketer. He
kept wicket for the first eleven.... No better candidate could possibly
be found." I have elsewhere noted his reference to the clergyman who
in the same year had declared that what his village really needed in
a curate was "a good fast bowler with a break from the off." Towards
the new type of cricketing journalist which emerged about the close
of the century _Punch_ was not exactly benevolent; the duplication
of functions was remunerative, but could not conduce to impartial
reporting when the writer was also a performer. In the last ten years
of this period _Punch's_ references to cricket are much less frequent,
but we may note his excellent Latin joke in 1906 on the discomfiture of
the Players at Lord's--_urgentur ... longa Nocte_, i.e. by long Knox,
the famous amateur fast bowler. The triumph of Warwickshire--champion
county in 1911--is commemorated in the cartoon, "Two Gentlemen of
Warwickshire," with the ingenious legend:--
MR. F. R. FOSTER (Captain of the Warwickshire XI): "Tell Kent
from me she hath lost." (II Henry VI, iv, 10.)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: "Warwick, thou art worthy!" (III Henry
VI, iv, 6.)
[Sidenote: _Lord's and Ladies_]
Cricket was increasingly played by girls, but both at the beginning and
the end of the period the female spectator left much to be desired.
After the Oxford and Cambridge match in 1896 _Punch_ wrote some verses
on the attraction of "Lord's" for ladies, which end on a note of severe
remonstrance:--
If, Phyllis, you your place _must_ take
Between me and the wicket,
Don't chatter, and for goodness' sake
Sit still and watch the cricket.
In 1912 appeared the picture, "At the Eton and Harrow Match." Here an
"important lady" addresses deep square-leg, standing near the boundary,
"Would you kindly move away? It's quite impossible for my daughter to
see my nephew, who is batting."
[Illustration: FIRST OFFICER (to very young Subaltern, who is
packing his kit for South Africa): "What on earth do you want with all
those polo sticks?"
SUBALTERN: "Well, I thought we should get our fighting done by
luncheon-time, and then we should have the afternoons to ourselves and
could get a game of polo!"]
If cricket claims less notice in _Punch's_ pages, it must not be taken
to imply any lessening of his love. The reason is to be found in the
richer field for satire and ridicule provided by other pastimes. The
immense development of Association football as a spectacular game,
and the wholesale importation of hireling players to represent a
district to which they did not belong, found no favour with _Punch_.
His picture of Football Fever in the Midlands on Saturday afternoon in
1892 is deliberately grotesque and hostile. By 1904 the achievements of
the Dominions and of Wales in the Rugby game lend point to _Punch's_
burlesque forecast of the "Football of the Future." International
matches are to be "refereed" by well-known statesmen; Esperanto is to
be spoken; and Great Britain is represented by a team of fourteen New
Zealanders and one Welshman. In 1910 a weekly paper advocated weeping
for men as "the true elixir of energy and the greatest of Nature's
restoratives." This pronouncement was turned to good account in "A
Cup Tie Episode," relating how a team, with three--love against them
at half-time, turned the tables on their opponents after a copious
outburst of tears. Again, when a daily paper in 1913 conducted a
referendum amongst its readers to ascertain what subjects of public
interest were insufficiently treated in its columns, _Punch_ asserts
that "to the Editor's question 465,326 readers replied, football;
235,473, golf; 229,881, flying; and 2, foreign politics." The burlesque
snapshots published in the same year if reprinted to-day would hardly
be an exaggeration of the latest inanities of the camera in the
football field.
While _Punch_ might plead guilty to an "insufficient treatment" of
professional football, and glory in his guilt, he could not be charged
with a similar neglect of golf. As a solace to the unsuccessful lady
lawn-tennis player it is recommended, as early as 1894, in an audacious
travesty of Goldsmith:--
When lovely woman tries to volley,
But finds that men refuse to play,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What game can take her grief away?
The means her spirits to recover,
To still the jeers of those that scoff,
To fascinate the tardy lover,
And gain his favour is--to Golf.
[Sidenote: _Punch and Tom Morris_]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE BOYS
FIRST CADDIE: "Who're ye foor this morning, Angus?"
SECOND CADDIE: "A'm foor the petticoats."]
Sacrilegious hands are laid on Mrs. Browning, in 1902, in the lament
of "The Golf Widows"--i.e. women whose husbands do nothing but play or
talk golf--an excellent satire on the selfishness, the "shop," and the
strong language of the "strong man off his game." But there are golfers
and golfers; and _Punch_ recognized one of the real heroes of the game
in his "Royal and ancient friend," old Tom Morris, whose resignation
of his post as green-keeper at St. Andrew's inspired this genial
salutation:--
Well have you borne your fourscore years and two,
Faithful in service, as in friendship true;
Now, pacing slowly homewards from the Turn,
Long may it be before you cross the Burn,
And, ere you tread your well-loved links no more,
May eight-two (plus twenty) be your score.
The popularity of golf in France has led to the framing of a complete
glossary of French equivalents for the terminology of the game.
_Punch_, as a good humanist, essayed a similar task at a time when the
revival of Latin for conversational purposes was proposed by some hardy
classicists. As he justly remarks: "The advantages of Latin in this
context will not have escaped the notice of even the most superficial
observers. Thus the bad effect on caddies of using strong language in
the vernacular is entirely obviated. Again, when the ball is lying
dead, only a dead language can render justice to the situation."
[Illustration: WILLIAM THE WHEELMAN
"'I can only emphasize the fact that I consider that physically,
morally, and socially, the benefits that cycling confers on the men
of the present day are almost unbounded.' (_Aside_) Wish I were on a
'Safety'!!"]
[Sidenote: _Bicycling, Croquet, Swimming_]
Of the brief vogue of bicycling among the "smart set" I have spoken
already. The abuse of this indispensable machine inspired a new version
of "Daisy Bell, or a Bicycle Made for Two"--"Blazy Bill or the Bicycle
Cad"--of which it may suffice to quote the last stanza:--
Blazy! Blazy!
Turn up wild wheeling, do!
I'm half crazy,
All in blue funk of you.
The "Galloping Snob" was a curse, Sir,
But the Walloping Wheelman is worser;
I'd subscribe half a quid
To be thoroughly rid
Of all Bicycle Cads like you.
As a set-off, however, in "_Facilis Descensus_" _Punch_ sings gaily
and genially of the "dear little Bishop" who had bought a new "bike"
and found that in the joys of the wheel nothing could come up to
"coasting." The picture of Mr. Gladstone on the old "ordinary" is not a
representation of fact, but I print it as a reminder of the appearance
of that remarkable and perilous-looking machine. Croquet, which had led
a submerged existence for several years, reasserted itself in 1894, and
_Punch_, in affected astonishment, asked, "Are we back in the 'sixties
again?" The revival was attributed by the _Pall Mall Gazette_ to the
abolition of "tight croqueting," a phrase which gave _Punch_ openings
for facetious comment. In the previous year he had disrespectfully
spoken of croquet as the "feeblest game," and yet admitted that, given
a pretty partner, it beat golf and polo. Swimming, in its heroic
form, loomed large in 1905, and in _Punch's_ picture the Channel is
black with male and female athletes, while an article is devoted to
a fictitious account of an hotel at Dover specially equipped to meet
their needs. Women had by now taken so kindly to all kinds of sport and
pastime that _Punch_ sought to reduce their competition to absurdity in
the dialogue of two stalwart young men who preferred arranging flowers
to shooting or golfing, because they had become "so effeminate." The
sporting woman, by the way, was no favourite of Du Maurier's. Ten years
earlier he had portrayed an odious specimen of the new womanhood in
Miss Goldenberg, who, in reply to the question of the charming vicar's
wife whether she had had good sport, replies jauntily: "Oh, rippin'! I
only shot one rabbit, but I managed to injure quite a dozen more!" The
"Ballad of the Lady Hockey-player" in 1903 ascribes to her a distinctly
matrimonial purpose:--
And to-day I'm so excited that I feel inclined to scream,
But a certain sense of modesty prevails;
For this very afternoon I am to play against a team
That will be composed of eligible males.
Though I do not care two pins
Which side loses, or which wins,
I may get some introductions if I hit 'em on the shins.
Winter sports in Switzerland make their _début_ in _Punch_ in 1895 in
an article on tobogganing dated "_Canton des Grisons_." Mention is
made of curling, "bandy" and figure-skating, but nothing is said of
ski-ing, which though practised as a sport in Norway from 1860, did
not reach Switzerland till the end of the century. Another foreign
importation, this time from Japan, was ju-jitsu, to the value of which
_Punch_ pays a dubious tribute in 1899 in a burlesque interview with a
burglar on whom a householder had ineffectually tried the new art of
self-defence. In the same mood are the farcical suggestions for dealing
with various awkward situations in 1905, and the overthrow of a butler
by a page-boy, to the petrifaction of the servants' hall. There was
a recrudescence of roller-skating in 1909 which _Punch_ deals with
in pictures, prose and verse. The inexpert and self-protective lover
sings, after Ben Jonson:--
Rink with me only with thine eyes,
And do not clutch my frame;
Clasp yonder expert's hand instead,
And I'll not press my claim.
[Sidenote: _The Tyranny of Ping-pong_]
There are many allusions to "Rinkomania," but not nearly so many as to
Ping-Pong, which attained the proportions of a pestilence in 1901, 1902
and 1903. _Punch_ began by calling it a "ghastly game," but kept in
close touch with its progress until the tyranny was overpast. He gives
us pictures of ping-pong in the kitchen; of people searching beneath
the table and in corners for missing balls; a sketch of a ping-pong
tournament, with local champions and devotees of all ages and callings.
In his "Cry of the Children" the younger generation lift up their
voices in protest:--
We shall never know what peace is till we land upon that shore
Where the fathers cease from pinging and the mothers pong no more.
In 1902 the _Table Tennis Gazette_ issued its first number, and _Punch_
speculates on the contents:--
Here you may learn if it is true
That Tosher's got his Ping-Pong Blue.
The epidemic abated in 1903, and in "The Lost Golfer" _Punch_ has
some excellent chaff (after Browning) of the "parlour hero," his mind
temporarily unhinged by a "piffulent game." The verses begin "Just for
a celluloid pilule he left us," and end with the anticipation that the
"lost golfer" will yet return to his old haunts:--
Back for the Medal Day, back for our foursomes,
Back from the tables' diminishing throng;
Back from the infantile ceaseless half-volley,
Back from the lunatic lure of Ping-Pong.
Ping-pong departed, to be revived in 1920, but another and equally
devastating craze ran its course in 1907, when "Diabolo"--the old
"Devil-on-two-sticks"--was the ruling passion of the hour. It was
honoured with a cartoon showing John Redmond playing the "Divil of
a Game," the reel being "Leadership," and numerous illustrations
are devoted to the progress of the mania. _Punch_ affected to have
discovered a new disease, "Diabolo Neck," which he compares and
contrasts with "the Cheek of the Devil," and records the observation
of an ill-tempered old gentleman, as he watched some performers
"diabolizing" in Kensington Gardens: "A month or so ago that sort of
thing was only being done in our Asylums."
[Illustration: FIRST THRUSTER (guiltily conscious of having
rather pressed on hounds): "Now we're goin' to catch it; that's the
master comin', isn't it?"
SECOND THRUSTER (his host): "It's all right. We've got two
masters. That's the one that supplies the money; the other supplies the
language."]
The vogue of Bridge dates from the last years of the old century.
According to the veracious _Daily Mail_, in 1899 a Cambridge Professor
was earning handsome fees by giving instruction in the game to members
of the University, and _Punch_ embroiders the text according to his
wont. In 1901 _Punch's_ cartoon "Discarded" shows Fashion, in her
fool's cap, accosting "Mr. Bridge": "Come along, Partner! That dear
old Mister Whist is such a bore! He is so _vieux jeu_!" Bridge figures
as a gallant and picturesque cavalier, while Whist is a sour-visaged
old pedant. _Punch_ was not always of one mind about the triumphant
new-comer, but he cordially echoed the sentiments of the _Morning
Post_ when that journal asserted that Bridge made for the abolition
of the drawing-room ballad and the drawing-room ballad-monger; and it
gave him abundant scope for comment and parody, e.g. his perversion of
Longfellow's lines into "I played on at Bridge at midnight." Bridge,
however, had not always a monopoly of attraction even in the days when
its tyranny was at its height. In 1902 we encounter the tragedy of
the four men driven to the nursery to play Bridge because "they are
playing Ping-Pong in the dining-room, and 'Fives' in the billiard-room,
Jack's trying to imitate Dan Leno in the drawing-room, Dick's got that
infernal gramophone of his going in the hall, and they are laying
supper in the smoking-room."
[Sidenote: _Hunting and Prize-fighting_]
It is a relief to turn from these mostly futile indoor pastimes to the
robuster sports of the chase, the turf and the prize-ring. _Punch_
was fortunate in this period in having at his command, in Mr. Armour,
an artist who restored the hunting pictures to a higher level of
draughtsmanship than they had ever reached before. This implies no
disparagement of the incomparable geniality of Leech's drawings, which
in that respect have never been equalled, unless by Randolph Caldecott.
But for the correct drawing of hounds, horses and riders, and for the
discreet handling of the hunting landscape, Mr. Armour's equipment
is above reproach. References to the turf in the early years of this
period are mostly connected with Lord Rosebery. His success in winning
the Derby with _Ladas_ in 1894 lends point to the "highly improbable
anticipation" of _Punch's_ artist in which the Premier, in parson's
garb, announces his conversion to the tenets of the Nonconformist
conscience. In September of the same year we have the wail of a
"disgusted backer" over the defeat of the favourite in the St. Leger:--
_Ladas, Ladas,_
Go along with you, do.
I'm now stone-broke
All on account of you.
It wasn't a lucky Leger;
I wish I'd been a hedger,
Though you did look sweet
Before defeat!--
But I've thoroughly done with you.
In a more serious vein of irony _Punch_, in 1906, muses on the
popularity of the turf and ends with this reflection:--
Is it not odd that hitherto no poet
Has thought to mention how, with lord and serf,
Whether they plunge thereon, or rest below it,
There is no equaliser like the Turf?
Whatso our claim,
_The starting price is one, and Death the same_.
The problem of the future of the horse exercises _Punch_ in 1911. Mr.
Morrow's suggestions are always original, if fantastic, but he is on
safe ground when he declares that the horse could always be of use in
pageants. Motor-cars in ceremonial processions remind one of nothing so
much as huge beetles.
[Illustration: The picture of a boxer as published fifty years ago.]
[Illustration: And the picture of a boxer as published to-day.]
The great revival of boxing came at the end of the period, but in 1908
there is an amusing reference to Jack Johnson who, after defeating
Tommy Burns, had become very unpopular in New South Wales, but,
according to the _Daily Mail_, found consolation for adverse criticism
in reading Shakespeare, Milton and Bunyan. The statement was not thrown
away on _Punch_, who, while welcoming the evidence that Jack Johnson
was able to keep his temper sweet, observed that it would be sweeter
still to know what Shakespeare, Milton and Bunyan thought of his
devotion. On the eve of the War, as I have noted in the first chapter,
the man in the street was thinking a good deal more about Carpentier
than the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand.
INDEX
À Beckett, Gilbert, Thackeray on, i. 4;
_Comic Blackstone_, i. 90, 232
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, pro-Russian sympathies, i. 5, 125;
smoking pipe of peace, _illustration_, i. 124;
defends Prince Albert, i. 183
Abyssinia, King of, ii. 196
Abyssinia, war with, ii. 27 _seq._
Academy, British, scheme of, attacked by _Punch_, iv. 275
Academy, Royal: suggestions for improving, iv. 301;
"problem" pictures at, iv. 302;
Visitors at, _ibid._
Actors, salaries, i. 274;
and society, iii. 349 _seq._;
_see also_ Drama.
Adelaide, Dowager-Queen, tribute to, i. 198
Admiralty Arch, prospect obstructed, iv. 201
Advertisements, educational, i. 35;
growth, i. 161
Aerial steam carriage, _ill._, i. 73
Aeronautical Exhib., 1868, ii. 142
Aeronautics, i. 72 _seq._
Aeroplanes, beginnings, iv. 184, 186
Æsthetic movement, iii. 254 _seq._, 313, 329, 336 _seq._
Æsthetic pioneers, _ill._, i. 263
Afghan campaigns, iii. 3, 18
Afghan war, outbreak, iii. 25 _seq._
Afghanistan, Ameer of, iii. 18
Agitators, i. 52; ii. 58, 65, 81; iv. 111-2, 132-4
Agnosticism, attitude of _P._ towards, iii. 162
Agricultural depression, iv. 103, 113-4
Agricultural Gangs Act, ii. 46
Agricultural labourers, wages, i. 17;
food consumption of, iii. 72 _seq._;
conditions, iii. 89
Agricultural Land Rating Bill, 1896, iv. 114
Agriculture, machinery in, iii. 210;
shortage of hands, iv. 114
Ainsworth, Harrison, _Jack Sheppard_ censured, iii. 143
Air, conquest of the, iv. 181
Air Force, beginnings, iv. 90, 93
Airships, flights, iv. 183
_Alabama_ case, ii. 3, 20, 95
Albany, Duke of, iii. 223 _seq._;
recommends cookery lessons for the poor, iii. 76;
speech, iii. 218; marriage, iii. 221
Albemarle, 6th Earl of, i. 96, 206
Albert Gate, i. 149
Albert Hall opened, ii. 190
Albert Medal, ii. 182 _seq._
Albert Memorial, ii. 182
Albert, Prince Consort, ii. 169-70, 179 _seq._, 182;
unpopularity, i. 166, 171;
love of uniforms, i. 171, 172;
as sportsman, i. 173-6;
as farmer, i. 180;
Chancellor of Cambridge Univ., i. 181;
"Prince _P._ to Prince Albert," i. 182;
alleged interference in State affairs, i. 183
Alexander, Prince, of Bulgaria, iii. 55
Alexander II, of Russia, ii. 196, 204; iii. 30
Alexander III, of Russia, death, iv. 16
Alexandra, Queen, ii. 181;
and pigeon shooting, iii. 222;
sets fashions, iii. 222;
visits Ireland, iii. 225
Alfonso XIII, King. _See_ Spain
Alfred, Prince, Duke of Edinburgh, offered Greek crown, ii. 19;
decorated by King of Prussia, ii. 22;
tour in Egypt and Palestine, ii. 175;
refuses Greek crown, ii. 181;
marriage, ii. 188;
inaugurates Westminster Aquarium, iii. 100;
_P.'s_ toast to, iii. 223;
death, iv. 220
Alice, Princess, Grand Duchess of Hesse Darmstadt, married, ii. 181;
death, iii. 218
Allan, Maud, iv. 229, 326, 330
Allen, Grant, _The Woman who Did_, iv. 163
Almack's, i. 208; ii. 240;
Grantley Berkeley on, i. 209;
attempted revival, iii. 247
Alpine climbing, ii. 211
America, relations with, i. 134; iv. 11;
Monroe doctrine, iv. 8;
influence of millionaires, iv. 246;
freak dinners and _enfants terribles_, iv. 246
American blockade, ii. 68
American Civil War, ii. 3, 17 _seq._, 20, 22, 66 _seq._
American humorists, ii. 277
American journalism, i. 72; ii. 145 _seq._
American millionaire art collectors, iii. 276
American women of fashion, ii. 214
Americanisms, ii. 216
Amundsen, Roald, iv. 181;
reaches South Pole, iv. 190
Anæsthetics, discovery of, i. 77
Andersen, Hans Christian, child's letter to, i. 89
Anderson, Mary, iii. 347
Andover Union, i. 4, 20
Angell, Norman, _Foundations of International Policy_, iv. 97
Anglo-Danish Exhibition of 1888, iii. 289
Anglo-French _Entente_, iv. 6, 11, 48, 56, 125
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, iv. 6, 11
Anstey, F. (T. A. Guthrie), iii. 286, 289, 325
Antarctic exploration, iv. 181, 190-1
Anti-clericalism in France, iv. 159
Anti-war party, iv. 44-5
Arabi Pasha, iii. 3
Archer, William, translates Ibsen, iii. 355
Archery, ii. 238, 346
Arctic exploration, iv. 181, 190;
by Captain Nares, iii. 328
Argyll, 8th Duke of, ii. 68;
and Armenian atrocities, iv. 18
Aristocracy, i. 201 _seq._;
ignorance of peers, i. 204;
"bloated haristocrat," _ill._ i. 205;
journalists pander to, ii. 172;
and new rich, ii. 198;
take to journalism, iii. 242 _seq._
Armenian atrocities, iv. 18
Armoured ships, use of, criticized, ii. 140
Army, as a profession, i. 114;
flogging in the, i. 116;
Militia, reorganized, i. 116;
Brook Green volunteer, i. 116;
surgeons, i. 120;
Volunteer rifle clubs, i. 122;
undue differentiation between ranks, i. 131;
barracks system, inquiry into, i. 134;
purchase, i. 138; ii. 43;
Volunteers discouraged by military authorities, iii. 68 _seq._;
regular, enforced expenses in, iii. 70 _seq._;
Recruiting Commission, iii. 109;
_P.'s_ attitude towards, iii. 109 _seq._;
Volunteer review at Windsor, iii. 111;
Balaclava survivors, iii. 112;
and Ulster, iv. 94;
popular prejudice against, iv. 128.
_See also_ Crimean war, Uniforms.
Army reform, ii. 38; iv. 49
Arnold, Matthew, ii. 268; iii. 317;
through _P.'s_ eyes, iii. 322
'Arry, and 'Arriet, iii. 106 _seq._;
disappearance of, iv. 255, 256
Art, i. 249 _seq._;
English, discouraged at Court, i. 190;
criticism, i. 296;
Victorian, i. 301;
caricatures of impressionists, iv. 306;
and popular painters, 1902, _ibid._;
_nouveau art_, _ibid._;
_P.'s_ art glossary, iv. 307;
_The Times_ art critic burlesqued, iv. 308;
Futuristic method applied to popular painters, _ill._, iv. 309;
opening of Tate and National Portrait Galleries and
Wallace Collection, iv. 310.
_See also_ Royal Academy
Artillery, long-range, _P.'s_ prophecy, ii. 142
Artists, women, exhibition of, i. 252;
English, French medals conferred on, i. 303;
models, iii. 250
Ashanti expedition, ii. 38; iv. 8, 19
Ashley, Lord; _see_ Shaftesbury, 7th Earl of
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., iv. 62, 64, 95, 99;
as legislator, iv. 4;
and Boer war, iv. 45;
and national defence, iv. 66;
and Upper Chamber reform, iv. 67-9, 72;
"wait and see" policy, iv. 69-70;
and Ulster, iv. 85, 94, 97;
legislative activity, iv. 86, 88;
and Lord Curzon, iv. 90;
Home Rule Bill of 1914, iv. 98;
and Trafalgar Square meetings, iv. 111;
and Lloyd George's land campaign, iv. 118;
and old age pensions, iv. 130;
and Woman Suffrage, iv. 174, 178
Astley's Circus, i. 155; ii. 289
Athleticism, among women, ii. 238;
cult of, iv. 152
Athletics at school, iii. 292
Atholl, 5th Duke of, i. 18, 202
Atlantic cable, ii. 139
Atlantic liners, improved speed of, iii. 209
Augusta, Princess, of Cambridge, married, i. 193
Austin, Alfred, _P.'s_ attacks on, iv. 274
Australia, emigration to, i. 58;
industrial conditions, i. 57;
gold mines, i. 76;
Navy, iii. 56;
federation of colonies, iii. 66;
eight-hours day for domestics, introduced, iv. 120
Australian Commonwealth Bill of 1900, iv. 41
Austria, relations with Serbia up to 1914, iv. 10;
declares war on Serbia, iv. 100
Austro-Prussian war, ii. 3, 26
Authors, distressed, i. 85
Avebury, 1st Lord, ii. 87 _seq._; iv. 287
Ayrton, A. S., ii. 39, 152, 291
Babbage, Charles, ii. 99
Baden-Powell, General Sir Robert, defends Mafeking, iv. 39;
arrives in England, iv. 45;
founds Boy Scout movement, iv. 107
Baghdad railway, British subsidy proposed by Germany, iv. 48
Baker, Sir Samuel, ii. 216
Balfe, Michael W., attacked, i. 293;
success of _Bohemian Girl_, i. 278;
_Puritan's Daughter_, ii. 300
Balfour of Burleigh, Lord, iv. 58
Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur J., iii. 6, 32; iv. 4, 33, 44;
at the Irish Office, iii. 50;
and _The Times_, iii. 65;
Leader of the House of Commons, iii. 66;
and golf, iii. 298;
and Venezuelan arbitration, iv. 22;
and Boer war, iv. 39;
Prime Minister, iv. 48;
negotiates with Germany _re_ Baghdad railway, iv. 48;
legislation in Ireland, iv. 49;
administration collapses, iv. 56 _seq._;
holiday at Nice, iv. 92;
and Tariff Reform, iv. 51, 116;
and Education Act of 1902, iv. 148;
gives a ball, iv. 236-238
Balkans, trouble in, iii. 12, 14; iv. 90;
war of 1912, iv. 10, 80-83;
war of 1913, iv. 83-4
Ballantine, Serjeant, ii. 328
Ballet, Russian, iv. 229, 327, 330, 331
Ballet-girls, their cause espoused by _P._, ii. 234 _seq._
Balliol as a nursery of cranks and coming men, iv. 254
Ballooning: Charles Green, i. 73;
Captain Warner, i. 74;
to California, _ibid._
"Balmorals," ii. 331
Bancroft, Sir Squire and Lady, ii. 290-1;
influence on acting, iii. 351
Banjo, popularity of, iii. 278; iv. 339, _ill._
Bank smashes, i. 77
Banting, William, ii. 201
Bar, women and the, ii. 250
"Bardery," Welsh, ii. 220
Barnett, Canon, and art exhibition in Whitechapel, iv. 106
Barnum, Phineas T., return to England, iii. 289
Barrett, Wilson, as Hamlet, iii. 351
Barrie, Sir James, iii. 317;
_Window in Thrums_, iii. 323;
parodied, iii. 325;
plays of, iv. 313, 323;
two views of _Peter Pan_, iv. 328
Barrow-in-Furness, ii. 83, 84 _seq._
Barry, Sir C., i. 148, 304
Baseball, iii. 297; iv. 348
Bass, Michael, M.P.; his Bill to restrict street music, ii. 99
Battenberg, Prince Alexander of, abdicates, iii. 47;
death of, iv. 218
Battenberg, Prince Henry of, governor of Isle of Wight, iii. 231;
death of, iv. 218
Bazalgette, Sir Joseph, ii. 152
Beaconsfield, B. Disraeli, Earl of, and "Young England," i. 24;
supports Bill for Regulation of Factory Labour, i. 25; _Sybil_,
i. 26; literary style, i. 27;
opposes repeal of Corn Laws, i. 28;
ignorance of arithmetic, i. 86;
as "political Topsy," _ill._ i. 107;
_P.'s_ distrust of, i. 108;
design of monument to, i. 109;
_Life of Lord George Bentinck_, i. 109;
policy of, ii. 4, 29, 30 _ill._, 40, 42, 79, 82, 85, 113 _seq._;
religion and ancestry, ii. 117 _seq._, 121, 148, 181, 187, 214,
215 _ill._, 272, 273 _seq._, 341; iii. 4 _seq._;
earldom, iii. 12, 14 _seq._, 16 _seq._; declines "people's tribute,"
iii. 24;
waning prestige, iii. 24 _seq._;
and Afghan war, iii. 26;
death of, iii. 30;
quoted, iii. 139;
and Public Worship Regulation Bill, iii. 158;
on visit of Prince of Wales to India, iii. 215;
names Queen Victoria Empress of India, iii. 216
Beaufort, 9th Duke of; edits Badminton Library series, iii. 298
Beales, Edmond, ii. 80 _seq._
Beardsley, Aubrey, attacked by _P._, iv. 283, 301, 304, 305
Beatrice, Princess, her _Birthday Book_, iii. 221;
married, iii. 225 _seq._
Becker, Lydia, and Woman Suffrage, iii. 128
Beckett, Gilbert Arthur à, ii. 291
Bedford, 9th Duke of, and Covent Garden, iii. 182 _seq._;
and Bloomsbury, iii. 184, 186
Beecher-Stowe, Mrs., visits England, i. 255
Beers, Jan Van, artist, criticized by _P._, iii. 340
Beesly, Professor E. H., ii. 42, 70
_Beggar's Opera, The_, iii. 359
Belgium, Royal tour in, i. 191;
suggested French occupation of, ii. 34;
and Congo, iv. 55, 66
Bellini, Vincenzo, operatic composer, ii. 301
Benedict, Sir Jules, ii. 300; iii. 373
Bengal tiger, _ill._, ii. 5
Bennett, Arnold, iv. 289
Benson, Archbishop, iii. 34;
and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, iii. 57;
headmaster of Wellington College, iii. 149
Benson, Sir Frank; productions criticized, ii. 352
Béranger, Pierre Jean de, ii. 101
Beresford, Admiral Lord Charles, and national defence, iii. 69;
resignation of, iii. 230
Berlin, Congress of, 1878, iii. 4, 17;
amenities of, iv. 55
Berlioz, cult of, in England, iii. 370
Bernhardi, General, iv. 85
Bernhardt, Sarah, visits to England, iii. 345 _seq._; iv. 316, 320;
at the Coliseum in 1910, iv. 330
Besant, Mrs. Annie, iii. 254
Besika Bay, naval demonstration in, iii. 16
Bethmann-Hollweg, Dr., introduces German Army Bill, iv. 84
Bicycles, appearance of, ii. 138; iii. 200;
evolution of, iii. 300;
fashionable, iv. 244-5;
invade schools, iv. 255;
uses and abuses of, iv. 355;
Mr. Gladstone on, _ill._, iv. 354
Bieberstein, Baron Marschall von, German ambassador, iv. 80
Big Ben, i. 150
Biggar, Mr. J. G., M.P., iii. 21
Billingsgate, new buildings, i. 150;
condition of, iii. 183
Bird, Henry, iv. 343, 344
Birkenhead, Lord, iv. 6
Birmingham, Reformatory Institution, i., 29;
school of brewing established at University of, iv. 155
Birrell, Mr. Augustine, iv. 62, 95, 134;
as Irish Chief Secretary, iv. 67;
and Sir E. Carson, iv. 86;
leaves Education Office, iv. 149
Bishop, Irving, thought-reader, iii. 252
Bisley, headquarters of N.R.A., iii. 69
Bismarck, Prince, ii. 29, 32, 34; iii. 10, 201; iv. 49;
hostility to, ii. 26;
Socialists and, iii. 19;
_P.'s_ view of, iii. 40;
cartoon of, iii. 51;
Army Bill, iii. 52;
Triple Alliance and, iii. 54, 59;
relations with Wilhelm II, iii. 54;
with Empress Frederick, iii. 55; iv. 222;
dismissed by Wilhelm II, iii. 61;
in retirement, iii. 64; iv. 21, 26, 45, 65
Black Country, white slavery in, ii. 61 _seq._;
workmen's extravagance in, ii. 92
Black Sea Conference, ii. 38
Blackwell, Elizabeth, M.D., i. 250
Blake, William, ii. 64; iii. 329
"Blanche," letters of, iv. 246
Blavatsky, Madame, iii. 254
Blériot, M., cross-Channel flight, iv. 186
Blessington, Countess of, i. 221
Blomfield, C. J., Bp. of London, i. 45, 95
Blondin, tight-rope walker, ii. 211, 238, 244 _seq._, 308; iii. 100;
in Westminster Aquarium, iv. 203
Bloomerism, i. 250, 251 _ill._, 262; iii. 305
Bloomsbury, state of, iii. 184 _seq._
Boat races, Oxford v. Harvard, ii. 345 _seq._;
with French at Andrésy, iv. 345;
Cambridge and Harvard, iv. 346;
French crews at Henley, _ibid._
Bodichon, Mme. Barbara, ii. 252, 260
Boer war, iv. 11;
causes of, iv. 36 _seq._;
progress of, iv. 38-46
Bombalino. _See_ Francis IV of Naples
Boneshakers. _See_ Bicycles
Bonheur, Rosa, ii. 243
Booth, Charles, and old age pensions, iv. 119
Booth, Edwin, actor, ii. 283
Booth family, attitude of _P._ towards, iii. 170 _seq._
Booth, General, and Trade Union Congress in 1908, iv. 162;
death, iv. 162
Booth, J. L. C., iv. 78
Borradaile case, ii. 327 _seq._
Borthwick, Peter, M.P., i. 312
Botha, General Louis, in London, iv. 46;
Premier of Transvaal, iv. 62
Boucicault, Dion, ii. 288; iii. 353
Boulanger, General, bid for dictatorship, iii. 8, 55;
visits England, iii. 57 _seq._;
commits suicide, iii. 58
Boulogne: "_Bradshaw_: a mystery," i. 71;
English colony at, i. 221
Bowers, Miss G., ii. 238
Bowles, Mr. T. Gibson, iv. 58;
and Declaration of London, iv. 77
Boxing, ii. 340 _seq._;
by women, iii. 132;
Slavin and Smith, iii. 290
Boy Scout movement, iv. 107-10, 145
Braddon, Miss, ii. 274; iii. 318
Bradlaugh, Charles, M.P., ii. 190;
vicissitudes in Parliament, iii. 26 _seq._;
and Royal grants, iii. 232
Bradley, Dean, iii. 167
Brahms, Johannes, his genius, iii. 368
Bret Harte, iii. 319
Briand, M., iv. 73
Bridge, negative value of, iv. 247;
whist ousted by, iv. 358
Briggs, Mr., murder of, ii. 136
Bright, Jacob, ii. 258
Bright, John, i. 5; ii. 8, 13, 26, 68, 70, 116, 227; iii. 4, 6, 9, 16,
26, 34;
opposes Bill for Regulation of Factory Labour, i. 25;
and Cardinal Wiseman, i. 104;
onslaught on, i. 132;
speech criticized, ii. 64 _seq._;
secedes from Gladstonian party, iii. 50;
death, iii. 60, 228
Brighton, i. 156
British Academy, proposed founding of a, iii. 327
Brock, Sir Thomas, R.A., sculptor of Victoria Memorial, iv. 207
Brodie, Sir Benjamin, ii. 197
Brodrick, Hon. St. John (Lord Midleton), and exclusion of peers from
Commons, iv. 18;
and Army reform, iv. 49, 58
Bromhead, Lieut., V.C., hero of Rorke's Drift, iii. 23
Brompton swallowed up in South Kensington, iii. 177
Bronte, Charlotte, ii. 234
Brook Green Volunteer, i. 116
Brooks, Shirley, _Essence of Parliament_, i. 91; ii. 187 _seq._, 223,
269; iii. 226
Brougham, Henry, Lord, i. 307 _seq._;
palinode to, i. 310;
commended, ii. 58, 263
Broughton, Rhoda, Miss, ii. 236, 274; iii. 324
Brown, John, Queen Victoria's attendant, death of, iii. 223
"Brown, Tom." _See_ Hughes, Tom
Browne, Hablot K. ("Phiz"), _P.'s_ criticism of, iii. 340
Browning, Robert, ii. 204; iii. 317;
his greatness, iii. 318
Browning Society, iii. 318, 324
Brummell, Beau, i. 188, 221
Brunel, Isambard K., ii. 27;
and Stephenson, iii. 199
Brunel, Sir M. I., i. 149
Bryce, Viscount, iv. 148
Buccleuch, 5th Duke of, ii. 152
Buckingham Palace, i. 149, 190
Buckingham, 2nd Duke of, i. 18
Buckland, Professor, i. 181
Buckstone, J. B., actor, i. 275; ii. 291;
death, iii. 350
Budget, the Radical, of Sir W. Harcourt, iv. 4;
the People's Budget, iv. 132
Buffalo Bill, "Wild West" show in W. Kensington, iii. 289
Bulgaria, crown offered to Prince Ferdinand, iii. 51
Bulgarian atrocities, iii. 3, 12
Buller, General Sir Redvers, iv. 46
Bull-fighting, ii. 343
Bull's Run, ii. 18
Bülow, Count von, German Chancellor, iv. 55;
and Socialists, iv. 62
Bulwer-Lytton, E. (1st Baron Lytton), his _Claude Duval_ criticized,
iii. 143;
Tennyson's reply in _P._ to his attack in _The New Timon_, iv. 224
Bunn, Alfred, "Poet Bunn," i. 235
Burdett-Coutts, Miss (afterwards 1st Baroness), i. 254; ii. 227;
efforts to check plumage scandal, iii. 310
Burgon, Dean, attacked by _P._, iii. 151
Burlington Arcade, i. 156
Burlington House exhibitions, iii. 328
Burnand, Sir Frank: _Cox and Box_, i. 155; ii. 235, 273; iii. 363;
editor of _P._, iii. 150, 171;
as a parodist, iii. 325;
as playwright, iii. 343;
resigns editorship of _P._, iv. 300;
his "Few Words at Parting" and "R. C. L.'s" tribute, _ibid._
Burne-Jones, Sir E., criticized by _P._, iii. 331, 334; iv. 303
Burns, Rt. Hon. John, as Socialist, iii. 76, 78;
in Mr. Asquith's Cabinet, iv. 135;
and Trade Union Congress of 1908, iv. 162
Burt, Right Hon. T., M.P., ii. 43, 88
Butler, Mrs. Montagu, ii. 261
Butler, Mrs. (afterwards Lady Butler), iii. 116
Buxton, Mr. Sydney (afterwards Earl Buxton), President of Board of
Trade, iv. 133
Byng of Vimy, General Lord, iv. 8
"Ca' canny," practice of, ii. 95
Cable, submarine, to France, i. 72, 75 _ill._;
Transatlantic, i. 72;
laid in 1866, ii. 27
Cabs, i. 141, 142;
taxis foreshadowed, i. 77;
competition with taxis, iv. 195-6
Caine, Sir Hall, less entertaining than _Bradshaw_, iv. 285.
_See also_ iv. 287, 288
Cairns, 1st Earl, ii. 116; iii. 37
Caldecott, Randolph, iii. 221, 334
Californian goldfields, i. 76
Callan, Philip, M.P., cartooned, iii. 21
Calls, practice of paying, iv. 254
Calvé, Mme., iii. 362; iv. 333
Calverley, C. S., ii. 270; death, iii. 320;
parodist, iii. 325
Cambridge, Adolphus Frederick, Duke of, i. 194, 195
Cambridge, Duke George of, and Indian Mutiny, ii. 7;
attitude to Volunteers, iii. 68 _seq._, 70;
and education in the ranks, iii. 110;
and barrack life, iii. 110 _seq._;
on neutral-tinted uniforms for active service, iii. 111 _seq._;
opposes Channel Tunnel, iii. 204, 224;
resigns post of Commander-in-Chief, iv. 217;
death, _ibid._
Cambridge University, Bill, i. 87;
Prince Albert, Chancellor of, i. 181
Camouflage foreshadowed, iv. 193
Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, iv. 317
Campbell, Sir Colin (Lord Clyde), ii. 6, 8, 16
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, iii. 46;
leads Liberals, iv. 33;
and Boer war, iv. 45;
campaign against the Lords, iv. 62;
death, iv. 6, 64;
and Chinese labour, iv. 130
Canada, Federation of, ii. 28
Canada, relations with England and the U.S., iii. 65 _seq._
Canadian Pacific Railway completed, iii. 199
Canning, Lord, Governor-General of India, ii. 4, 7
Cantillon, Lieut., Napoleon's legacy to, i. 201
Capital and labour, iii. 80 _seq._;
iv. 103-35
Capital punishment, ii. 97; iii. 100
Caprivi, Count, and Bismarck, iii. 64
Cardigan, 7th Earl of, Leech's drawing of, i. 131;
charges against, i. 135;
Indian Mutiny, ii. 7
Cardwell, Rt. Hon. Edward (Viscount Cardwell), and Army Reform, ii. 39
Carlyle, Thomas, on the ballet, i. 280; ii. 275; iii. 16;
death, iii. 317 _seq._
Carnarvon, 4th Earl of, ii. 50; iii. 16, 18;
Viceroy of Ireland, iii. 44
Carnegie, Andrew, gift to Scottish universities, iv. 156
Carnot, President, iii. 58, 206;
cartooned, iii. 64;
assassinated, iv. 16
Carpentier, Georges, iv. 99
"Carroll, Lewis," i. 266; ii. 269;
_P.'s_ farewell to, iv. 286-7
Carson, Sir Edward, and Ulster, iv. 80, 85-6, 96-7
Caruso, Enrico, iv. 333, 334
Carver, Dr., shooting performances at Crystal Palace, iii. 103
Casement, Sir Roger, and Congo atrocities, iv. 55
Catholic Emancipation, i. 108
Catnach, bookseller, i. 161
Cattle plague, ii. 76
Cavour, Count, ii. 11, 19
Cecil, Lord Hugh, and Education Act of 1902, iv. 148
Cecil, Lord Robert, and Marconi inquiry, iv. 88
Censorship, dramatic, iv. 314
Central Criminal Court, iii. 101
Central Metropolitan Board, i. 161
Cervera, Admiral, gallantry of, iv. 11
Cetewayo captured, iii. 23
Chaliapine, Russian singer, iv. 99, 338
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph, ii. 192;
the "Brummagem Lion," _ill._, ii. 193; iii. 6, 85;
and Home Rule in 1886, iii. 44 _seq._;
Unionist, iii. 57;
Leader of the Liberal-Unionists in the Commons, iii. 66;
on disestablishment, iii. 173;
joins Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, iv. 18, 19;
handling of Jameson Raid, iv. 20;
Colonial Secretary, iv. 20;
and Venezuelan arbitration, iv. 22;
on expedition to Khartum, iv. 24;
and Bloemfontein conference, iv. 36;
Australian Commonwealth Bill, iv. 41;
resignation, iv. 50;
Tariff Reform campaign, iv. 50-1;
death, iv. 99;
views on old age pensions, iv. 119
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Austen, and Ulster crisis, iv. 97
Channel Tunnel scheme, ii. 138; iii. 202, 204; iv. 191-2
Chaperon, decline of, iii. 265
Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry (afterwards Viscount Chaplin), iv. 4;
and agricultural depression, iv. 113-14;
on old age pensions, iv. 119;
defeated in 1906, iv. 58
Chard, Lieutenant, V.C., hero of Rorke's Drift, iii. 23
Charing Cross Road opened, iii. 180
Charing Cross Terminus built, ii. 153
Chartism, i. 49 _seq._;
Great Petition, i. 9, 49;
defended, i. 10, 50 _ill._;
Ebenezer Elliott and, i. 51;
_P.'s_ petition, i. 54.
_See also_ Corn Laws
Chelsea Bun House, i. 158
Chevalier, Albert, coster songs, iii. 373
Chignons, ii. 324 _seq._
Child labour, ii. 58 _seq._
Childers, Right Hon. Hugh, ii. 54, 139; iii. 21
Children, precocity, i. 88, _ill._;
letter to Hans Andersen, i. 89;
_Comic Blackstone_ on, i. 90;
actors, i. 275;
Employment Commission, ii. 60;
education, ii. 60; iv. 136
_seq._;
acrobats, ii. 63;
tormentors of, ii. 127;
fairy tales for, ii. 128-9; iv. 138-9;
poor, condition of, iii. 86 _seq._;
fashions, iii. 313 _seq._;
Country Holiday Fund, iv. 106;
modern children, iv. 136-7, 140;
Christmas presents of, iv. 255
Chimney Sweepers' Regulation Acts, ii. 59, 63; iii. 306
China, war with, ii. 4, 16;
and foreigners, iii. 64;
"Boxer" rising, iv. 8, 41;
commercial interests of Powers in, iv. 31
Chinese labour, iv. 125, 130;
for domestic service, rumour of, iii. 272
Choate, Mr. Joseph, American ambassador to England, iv. 36
Cholera epidemic, i. 152, 239
Christian Science, iii. 254; iv. 160
Christmas cards, fashionable, iii. 278
Church Army, iii. 171
Church of England, i. 91 _seq._;
wealthy bishops, i. 95 seq.;
poor curates, i. 97 _seq._; 172;
Church schools, i. 99;
_P._ opposes extremists, i. 104;
"The Pet Parson," i. 105 _ill._;
doctrinal controversies in, i. 106;
Church Congress, 1869, ii. 45;
_P.'s_ Protestantism, ii. 101;
comprehension and toleration, ii. 102;
sale of pew rents, ii. 104;
_P._ on the richest and poorest Church in the world, ii. 105;
Church services, ii. 106;
attacks on ritualism and mock monks, _ibid._;
Mackonochie and Purchas cases, ii. 108;
Puseyism, ii. 109;
_Essays and Reviews_, ii. 109;
heresy-hunting of Jowett and Colenso, ii. 110-112;
Irish Church Disestablishment, ii. 113-114, 116;
Pan-Anglican Synod, ii. 119 _ill._, 120;
Public Worship Regulation Act, iii. 157-158;
attacks on Anglican intolerance, on Mr. Tooth and Mr. Mackonochie,
iii. 160;
"Mitred Misery," iii. 172;
doctrinal opportunism, _ibid._;
disestablishment scare in 1885, iii. 173;
trial of Bishop King of Lincoln, iii. 174;
Bishop Jayne commended, _ibid._;
education controversies, iv. 146-50;
curates and cricket, iv. 158;
Kikuyu controversy, iv. 160
Church, Roman Catholic: Hierarchy for England, i. 99;
_P.'s_ anti-Papal crusade, i. 100 _seq._;
Catholic emancipation, i. 108;
_P.'s_ anti-Vaticanism, ii. 101-102, 106;
welcome to Père Hyacinthe, ii. 113;
priests and Fenians, ii. 114;
Gladstone's pamphlet on _Vatican Decrees_, iii. 158-9;
hostility to Manning, iii. 162;
treatment of Roman Catholics in the Abbey, iii. 167;
Burnand's position, iii. 172;
obituary verses on Manning, iii. 174;
tribute to Cardinal Wiseman, in 1898, iv. 158;
comment on French interdict of religious orders in 1906, iv. 159;
tribute to Leo XIII, iv. 160
Churchill, Lord Randolph, iii. 6, 50 _seq._; iii. 32, 34; iv. 6, 14,
25;
in Salisbury Cabinet, iii. 43;
and Ulster, iii. 46;
at the Treasury, iii. 47;
on national defence, iii. 69
Churchill, Mr. Winston, iv. 6, 94;
on Upper Chamber reform, iv. 67;
on Navy Estimates (1912), iv. 78;
scheme for naval holiday, iv. 85, 91;
and aerial armaments, iv. 93
Cigarettes, appearance of, ii. 142
Cinematograph, iv. 123, 181, 189
Civil Service, candidates for, i. 226;
open competition instituted, ii. 43
Civil List pensions, i. 234
"Claimant," the, ii. 206-10, 320
Clairvoyantes, ii. 203
Clanricarde, 1st Marquess, ii. 197
Clarence, Duke of, birth, ii. 181;
death, iii. 234
Clarendon, 4th Earl of, i. 79; ii. 31
Classical scholarship, _P._ on, i. 88
Cleopatra's Needle, iii. 179
Clerkenwell Prison, Fenian attempt to blow up, ii. 27
Clerks, condition of, iii. 91 _seq._;
female, iii. 125
Cleveland, President, iv. 11;
and Venezuelan arbitration, iv. 22
"Clicquot, King." _See_ Frederick William IV, King of Prussia
Clifford, Dr., and education, iv. 150
Clifford's Inn demolished, iv. 204
"Climbing-boy" scandal, ii. 58-9, 63-4; iii. 86
"Close, Poet," i. 234; ii. 272
Club, a fashionable, i. 217 _ill._;
library in, i. 218;
ladies', i. 244;
_P.'s_ allusion to the Athenæum, ii. 222
Coal, extortionate tolls, i. 59;
mining, _ibid._;
future of, ii. 83;
high price of, ii. 92 _seq._;
strike of December, 1893, iv. 111;
crisis in 1912, iv. 134
Cobbe, Miss Frances P., iii. 310
Cobden, Richard, i. 5;
and gold mania, i. 76;
and arbitration, i. 118;
subservience to America, i. 132;
attacks sinecures, i. 190;
death, ii. 24;
enraged with Palmerston, ii. 72
Cock-fighting, iii. 103
Cockney dialect, iii. 197
"Coffin-ships," ii. 99 _seq._
Cole, Sir Henry, ii. 190
Colenso, Bishop of Natal, case of, ii. 101, 111 _seq._
Coleridge, John, 1st Lord, ii. 133, 209
Colet, Dean of St. Paul's and founder of St. Paul's School, iii. 148
Collins, C. A. "Convent Thoughts" caricatured, i. 299
Collings, Mr. Jesse, M.P., iii. 99
Colonial and Indian Exhibition, iii. 288
Colonial Governors Act, ii. 25
Colorado beetle, advent of, iii. 208
Colosseum, the, in Regent's Park, i. 155
Colvile, General, iv. 45
Colvin, Sir Sidney, and Burne-Jones, iii. 334
Comédie Française troupe, ii. 284
Comedy and melodrama, ii. 288 _seq._
Comedy, musical, _P.'s_ burlesques of, iv. 321, 322, 324;
popularity of, iv. 338
Comet, of 1857, ii. 202;
of 1858, ii. 40
_Comic Blackstone, The_, i. 90, 232
Commercial travellers, female, iii. 125
Commune, French, ii. 37
Compulsory service, iv. 58, 66
Comte de Paris, iii. 58
Concert music, i. 289 _seq._; ii. 306 _seq._;
promenades, iv. 340;
Queen's Hall Sunday, iv. 341
Connaught (Prince Arthur), Duke of, ii. 19; iii. 223;
Royal grant for, ii. 187;
marriage, iii. 218 _seq._;
resigns succession to Dukedom of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, iv. 220
Confessional, the, ii. 101, 106, 109
Congo atrocities, iv. 66
Conrad, Joseph, iv. 291-2
Conscience clause in Education Act of 1870, ii. 123, 126
"Conscientious objectors" to vaccination, iv. 118
Conservative Reform Bill, ii. 96
Conspiracy Bill, indignation at, ii. 9
Constantine, King, of Greece, iv. 83
Constantinople Conference, iii. 14
Constitution Hill, "Quadriga" on, iv. 207
Convocation, Houses of, sessions, ii. 54
Cook, Dr., Arctic explorer, iv. 190
Cook, Thomas, & Son, travel agency, iii. 269
Cookery, i. 245;
British, ii. 200
Cooks and teachers, wages of, i. 33
Co-operative societies, ii. 200
Copyright, international, advocated, i. 234
Coquelin, M., visits England in 1887, iii. 347;
in _Cyrano de Bergerac_, iv. 319
Corelli, Miss Marie, a rival to Shakespeare, iv. 280;
her novels reviewed, iv. 281, 284
Corn Laws, campaign against, i. 5;
Disraeli opposes repeal of, i. 28;
repealed, i. 51; ii. 43
Corporal punishment, ii. 132; iii. 142
Corsets, iii. 307, 310
Cosmetics, ii. 326 _seq._, 330; iv. 247
_Cospatrick_, burning of the, iii. 86
Costa, Sir Michael, i. 294; ii. 305, 307
Coup d'Etat of 1851, i. 120, 196
Court, the, i. 165 _seq._;
crowds at drawing-rooms, i. 189 _ill._;
_bal poudré_ ridiculed, i. 190; ii. 169-96; iii. 215-34; iv. 215-27
_Court Circular_ criticized, i. 179
Covent Garden Market, i. 151;
state of, iii. 182 _seq._; iv. 210
Covent Garden Theatre, burned in 1808 and 1856, re-opened in 1858,
i. 157; ii. 302 _note_
Coventry ribbon trade, distress, ii. 324
Cowper, 7th Earl, iii. 373
Coxwell, H., aeronaut, ii. 142; iii. 207
Crabbe, George, iv. 105
Craig, Gordon, iv. 306
"Cramming" in schools, ii. 131
Cranborne, Lord, _see_ Salisbury
Cranbrook, 1st Earl of, iii. 37
Crane, Walter, iii. 221
Crawford and Balcarres, 25th Earl of, ii. 204
Crawley, Peter, prize-fighter, ii. 341
Crawshay, Mrs., of Cyfarthfa, and "lady helps," iii. 270
Craze for writing memoirs, iii. 250 _seq._
Cremation legalized, ii. 223; iii. 275
Cremorne Gardens, i. 159;
fête at, ii. 241;
closed, iii. 177
Crewe, 1st Marquess of;
on anti-Lords campaign, iv. 63;
in Mr. Asquith's Cabinet, iv. 91
Crichton-Browne, Sir James, and higher education of women, iii. 123;
report on Board schools, iii. 138;
on vegetarianism, iii. 209
Cricket, ii. 344 _seq._; iii. 292 _seq._;
cricket schoolmasters, ii. 131;
played by women, iii. 132;
visits of Australian team, iii. 292, 294;
England _v._ Australia, iv. 349;
explaining it away, _ibid._;
cricket as a passport to politics, iv. 350;
Warwickshire's triumph, iv. 351;
ladies at, _ibid._
Crime, iii. 100 _seq._; iv. 123;
fostered by harmful literature, iii. 143 _seq._
Crimean war:
declared, i. 124;
hospital scandals, i. 126 _seq._;
postal service breaks down, i. 126;
"Jolly Russian Prisoners," i. 129;
brave deeds unrecognized, i. 129, 130;
profiteering, _ill._, i. 130;
peace party's efforts, i. 131;
corps of navvies, _ibid._;
Sebastopol inquiry, i. 132;
discontent with peace terms, _ibid._;
_P._ advocates "frightfulness," _ibid._;
peace rejoicings, i. 133;
post-war parallels, i. 134; iii. 109
Crimes Act, iii. 44, 50
Crinolines, i. 258 _seq._; ii. 174 _seq._, 225 _ill._, 320 _seq._;
threatened revival of, iii. 311; iv. 265
Critics, dramatic, iv. 320
Crockford's Gambling Club, i. 221
Crompton, Samuel, inventor of spinning mule, ii. 73
Cromwell, Oliver, suggested statue of, i. 196, 197 _ill._;
iv. 205, 206
Croquet, ii. 238, 346; iii. 303; iv. 355
Crossley, Frank, iii. 171
Crown and Court, _see_ Court
Cruikshank, George, ii. 335;
death, iii. 332 _seq._
Crystal Palace:
name coined by Douglas Jerrold, i. 40;
moved to Sydenham, i. 44;
Queen Victoria opens, i. 47;
humorous handbooks to, _ibid._;
concerts, ii. 308 _seq._, 311;
exhibitions at, iii. 99, 287
Cuba annexed to U.S., iv. 30
Cubitt, Joseph, C.E., ii. 150
Cuffey, the Chartist, i. 55
Cumming, Dr. John, ii. 154;
prophesies end of world, ii. 202
Curragh Camp troubles, iv. 94
Curry powder for the poor, i. 17
Curzon, 1st Marquess, and exclusion of Peers from Commons, iv. 18;
and Oxford University, iv. 157;
and Upper Chamber reform, iv. 67
Cyder Cellars, i. 220
Cyprus annexed, iii. 17
_Daily Mail:_
champions windmills and standard bread, iv. 116;
and middle classes, iv. 126;
founded 1896, iv. 295;
circulation of, _ibid._
Dalkeith, 6th Earl of, defeated by Gladstone, iii. 26
Dances, new and old:
Barn-dance, Washington Post, Boston, Bunny-hug, Morris-dances,
Tango, iv. 234-7, 239, 240
Dancing craze, i. 209; iv. 229;
skating ballet, _ill._, i. 280
Darwin, Charles, ii. 214; iii. 375 _seq._
Davenport Brothers, ii. 205
Death Duties Budget, 1894, iv. 4, 15
Declaration of London, iv. 75
Delane, J. T., editor of _The Times_, i. 235;
eulogized, iii. 327;
Dasent's _Life_ and _P.'s_ comments, iv. 298
Delarey, General, in London, iv. 46
Delcassé, M., French statesman, iv. 78
Delhi, capture of, ii. 7
Denison, George Anthony, Archdeacon of Taunton, ii. 120; iii. 162
Denison, J. E., Speaker of House of Commons, ii. 79
Derby, 14th Earl of, ii. 9, 272;
resigns Premiership, ii. 28, 29;
death, ii. 31;
and Reform Bill, 1867, ii. 42, 85;
and Lancashire cotton famine, ii. 72;
forms Cabinet, 1866, ii. 79;
and Reform League, ii. 83;
and Irish Church Bill, 1869, ii. 116
Derby, 15th Earl of, and Sabbatarians, i. 91;
and Russo-Turkish war, iii. 16
Derby-Disraeli administration, ii. 50
De Reszke, Jean and Edouard, iii. 356, 360 _seq._; iv. 332
Desclée, Aimée, French actress, ii. 286
Destinn (Destinnova), Mme. Emmy, iv. 334
Devonshire, 7th Duke of, opens docks at Barrow-in-Furness, ii. 84;
death, iii. 66
Devonshire, 8th Duke of, at War Office, iii. 111;
joins Lord Salisbury's Cabinet, iv. 18;
integrity, iv. 50;
resigns from Balfour Ministry, iv. 58;
death, iv. 63
De Wet, General Christian, iv. 40;
reception in London, iv. 46
Diabolo, iv. 357
Dickens, Charles, ii. 212;
relations with _P._, ii. 273;
and Leigh Hunt, ii. 281;
patronizes "the Menken," ii. 289
_Dictionary of National Biography_ commences, iii. 326
Dilke, Sir Charles, opposes Royal grants, ii. 187 _seq._;
epigram on, ii. 188;
investigates slum areas, iii. 98;
on state of Thames, iii. 106;
and grant for Duke of Connaught's marriage, iii. 218;
and expedition to Khartum, iv. 34
Dillon, John, and Parnell, iii. 23, 61
Disarmament, Hague Peace Conference, 1899, iv. 34
Disestablishment, iii. 173;
of Irish Church, ii. 101
Disraeli, Benjamin. _See_ Beaconsfield
Divorce Bill of 1856, i. 96;
for poor, i. 21
Dobson, Austin, ii. 325;
criticized by _P._, iii. 321 _seq._
Doctors, and quacks, i. 239;
women, i. 250; ii. 247-50; iii. 114, 124;
Victorian diseases, ii. 200-1;
new cures, iv. 248-50.
_See also_ Medical Students, Surgeons
Döllinger, Dr., and Vatican Decrees, iii. 159
Domesticity, decline of, iv. 230
Domestic service and servants, i. 30-4; ii. 225 _seq._, 228, 230,
232 _seq._
Donizetti, Gaetano, operas, ii. 301
D'Orsay, Count, i. 221, 222
Dover, and Calais submarine cable, i. 72;
Y.M.C.A. episode, ii. 104
Dowbiggin, Captain, i. 206
Doyle, Richard, i. 218, 258;
resigns from _P._ staff, i. 112;
death, iii. 342
D'Oyly Carte, Mr., and English Opera House, iii. 181;
and performance of _The Gondoliers_, iii. 366
Drama, i. 271 _seq._; ii. 282-319; iii. 343-73;
French adaptations, i. 272;
censorship, i. 273;
harlequinade, i. 275;
as part of children's education, iv. 143;
Celtic, burlesqued in 1899, iv. 319;
decayed, revivals of, burlesqued, iv. 323.
_See also_ Theatres
Dress. _See_ Fashion, Uniforms
Dressmakers' long hours, i. 38
Dreyfus case, iii. 166; iv. 28, 34, 160
Drink Question. _See_ Temperance
Druce, Emily, fate of, ii. 56
Drury Lane Theatre, ii. 297, 309
Dublin transport workers' strike, iv. 134
Du Chaillu, P. B., ii. 214
Ducie, 2nd Earl of, i. 24
Duckworth, Rev. B., Canon of Westminster, iii. 167, 373
Duelling, campaign against, i. 114, 115 _ill._
Duma, first opening of, iv. 54
Dumas, Alexandre fils, ii. 286, 289;
_Dame aux Camélias_, i. 228
Du Maurier, George, social contrasts and new types, ii. 198;
flunkeys, ii. 233;
his gentle giantesses, ii. 239, 240;
an apostle of Eugenics, iii. 238-40;
his Limericks, iii. 325-6;
_P.'s_ tribute, iv. 228;
_Trilby_, iv. 284-5, 317
Duncombe, Tom, M.P., ii. 150
Dundee meeting of domestics, ii. 232
Dundrearyism, ii. 310, 336 _ill._, 337 _seq._
Dunlop, John Boyd, inventor of pneumatic tyre, iii. 300
Dunraven, 3rd Earl of, ii. 204
Dunraven, 4th Earl of, and Royal Commission on Sweating, iii. 94, 96;
America Cup challenger, iv. 346
Durham, Union-Workhouse, ii. 48;
University, grants B.A. degree to women, iii. 117
Duse, Mme., iv. 315, 321
Dynamiters, activity in 1885, iii. 40
Early closing, i. 38;
Bill of 1896, iv. 118
East India Company, ii. 6;
abolished, ii. 8
Eastlake, Sir Charles, P.R.A., ii. 314
Eastlake, Charles, of _P._, ii. 314 _note_
Ecclesiastical, courts, ii. 108;
Titles Act, i. 232
Eddy, Mrs. M. B., iii. 254
Edgeworth, Maria, i. 215; ii. 326
Edinburgh, Duke of, _see_ Alfred, Prince
Education, ii. 121-35; iii. 137-56; iv. 136-62;
ignorance of poor, i. 10, 82;
popular, i. 81 _seq._, 82 _ill._;
National Society for Promoting Education of Poor, i. 84;
Lord John Russell's resolutions, i. 86;
Bill of 1856, i. 87;
Montessori system foreshadowed, i. 88;
of Society girls, i. 214;
Elementary Education Act, 1870, ii. 122 _seq._;
fairy tales for children, ii. 128-9; iii. 146 _seq._; iv. 138 _seq._;
foreign nurses for modern languages, ii. 130;
co-education, ii. 131;
systems, English _v._ German, ii. 134;
of schoolgirls, improvements, iii. 119;
Elementary Education Act, 1891, iii. 142;
literature and crime, iii. 143 _seq._;
and stage, iii. 144 _seq._;
precocious children, iii. 145 _seq._;
classics _v._ commerce, iii. 151; iv. 152;
free libraries, iii. 155;
Act of 1902, iv. 125-6;
modern children, independence, iv. 136 _seq._;
theory of self-expression, iv. 140 _seq._;
dramatic method, iv. 143;
Boy Scout movement, iv. 145;
Act of 1871, iv. 145;
Bill of 1896, iv. 147;
Act of 1902, iv. 148;
Bill of 1906, iv. 148-50;
modern language teaching, iv. 154.
_See also_ Schools, Universities
Educationists, ii. 124 _seq._
Edward VII, King, _ill._, ii. 177, 193;
visits Canada and U.S.A., 1860, ii. 175 _seq._;
marries Alexandra of Denmark, ii. 181;
illness, 1871, ii. 191;
visits Birmingham, ii. 192;
promotes _Entente_ with France, iii. 19; iv. 6;
silver wedding, iii. 231;
and Emperor Wilhelm II, iii. 233;
fiftieth birthday, iii. 233;
death, iv. 73, 225;
pastimes, iv. 218;
coronation humours, iv. 223;
coronation postponed, iv. 224;
visits Ireland, iv. 224;
votes in H. of Lords, iv. 226;
lines on his dog Cæsar, iv. 226
Edward, Prince of Wales, birth, iv. 216;
visits Wales, iv. 227
Egypt, Arabi's revolt, iii. 32
Eisteddfodau, spread of, ii. 220
Elcho, Lord, 8th Earl of Wemyss, ii. 86, 336
Electricity, for lighting, i. 72; iv. 194;
telegraph, i. 72;
underground railways, iii. 199
Elgar, Sir Edward, i. 292; iv. 341
Eliot, George, ii. 260, 274; iii. 317
Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, visits Ireland and England, iii. 221;
assassinated, iv. 32
Ellenborough, 1st Earl of, and Indian Mutiny, ii. 4
Elliot, Sir H., iii. 14
Elliott, Ebenezer, i. 51
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, iii. 319
Emigration, remedy for discontent, i. 57;
female, scheme for, i. 58;
attitude of _P._ towards, iii. 108
_Enfant Prodigue_, ii. 285 _ill._; iii. 347
English characteristics, i. 223
English, travellers abroad, manners, ii. 333 _seq._;
tourists in France, iii. 278
English-speaking nations, proposed federation of, iii. 204
Entertainments and Royalty, ii. 192 _seq._
Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, King of Hanover, i. 192, 193
_Essays and Reviews_, ii. 101, 109 _seq._, 111
Etiquette, social, survivals of, in manners and speech, iv. 252
Eton College described, iii. 150
Eugenics satirized, iv. 248
Eugénie, Empress, i. 263; ii. 19, 175;
criticized, ii. 192
Evans's Supper Rooms, i. 220
Evolution, iv. 140-1
Excursions, i. 221; ii. 76; iii. 270
Executions, public, patronized by nobility, i. 216, 220
Exeter Hall, i. 81; ii. 71, 244, 309;
philanthropy, ii. 52
Exhibition of 1851, i. 40;
opening described, i. 42;
praise for Queen and Prince Consort, _ibid._;
dinner for workmen suggested, i. 43;
_Mr. P.'s_ Industrial, _ill._, i. 41;
Exhibition of 1862, ii. 73
Exhibitions in the 'eighties, iii. 287 _seq._
Exploration, iv. 190
Extravagance, in social functions, iv. 242, 243;
dress, iv. 243;
uniforms, iv. 243
Eyre, E. J. (Governor of Jamaica), ii. 25, 81, 99
Factory Act, ii. 43, 58
Fairy tales in education, ii. 128 _seq._; iii. 146 _seq._
Faithfull, Miss Emily, ii. 246
Faith-healers, ii. 205
Falconer, Hon. Ion Keith, iii. 300
Fancy dress balls, craze for, iii. 266
Faraday, Michael, i. 79, 314
Farm labourers, i. 17, 19; ii. 47-8; iii. 72-3, 89; iv. 116-18;
grievances, ii. 48
Farman, Henry, aviator, iv. 184
Farmers' hardships, iv. 113-4
Farragut, D. G., American admiral, ii. 22
Farrar, Dean, iii. 174
Farren, Nellie, actress, iii. 354;
at Gaiety Theatre, iii. 287;
benefit of, iv. 320
Fashions, i. 258 _seq._; ii. 320-38; iii. 304-16;
facial adornments, ii. 326 _seq._;
influence on high art, ii. 332;
approximation of male and female, iii. 304 _seq._; iv. 262, 263;
opposite extremes, iii. 309;
fur coats and boas, iii. 312;
ladies' balloon sleeves, iv. 266;
bolero coats and Russian blouses, _ibid._;
skirts becoming shorter, iv. 268;
effect of motoring on dress, _ibid._;
bathing dresses, iv. 269;
Directoire costume revived, _ibid._;
reduction of materials, iv. 271;
old and new fashion plates, iv. 271;
"Harem" skirts, iv. 272.
_See also_ Uniforms.
Fashoda incident, iv. 11, 28, 30
"Father Ignatius," ii. 106 _seq._
Faure, President, death, iv. 35
Fawcett, Henry, and Royal grants, ii. 187 _seq._; iii. 215;
and Woman Suffrage, ii. 254;
death, iii. 376
Fawcett, Mrs. Henry, ii. 257
Fawcett, Miss Philippa, ii. 261; iii. 122
Fechter, C. A., as Hamlet, ii. 282 _seq._
Fenian conspiracy, ii. 20, 25, 26, 27, 42, 114, 116
Ferdinand I, King, of Bulgaria, offered Bulgarian throne, iii. 57
Feudalism, ii. 47
Fiction, sexo-mania in modern, _ill._, iv. 290;
_P.'s_ conflicting views on, _ibid._
Field, Cyrus, ii. 27
Figuier, L., and fairy tales, ii. 129
Fisher, Sir John, made First Sea Lord, iv. 55;
and German naval menace, iv. 63
"Fisheries" Exhibition, iii. 288
FitzGerald, Edward, _P._ on his parasitic patrons, iv. 286
"Flapper," advent of the, iv. 175-6, 178;
education of, iv. 242
Flats, insanitary conditions, iv. 204
Fleet Prison closed, i. 28
Flogging of criminals, iii. 102;
in the Army, i. 116
Flower, E. F., agitation against cruelty to horses, iii. 103
Flunkeydom. _See_ Servants
Flying machine, invention of, iii. 201
Foley, J. H., R.A., statue to Outram, ii. 151
Folk-dancing revived, iv. 107
Follies, The, iv. 327-8
Food-fads, progress of, iv. 248-50;
no-food cult, iv. 249
Football, ii. 345;
Maori team visits England, iii. 296;
spread of Association game, iv. 352;
football of the future, _ibid._;
dominates the Press, _ibid._
"Fops' Alley," i. 219
Forster, Rt. Hon. W. E., and American Civil War, ii. 70;
his Education Act, ii. 121, 122 _seq._; iii. 72, 137;
and Bill against pigeon shooting, iii. 222;
death, iii. 376
Fox, Sir Douglas, engineer, iii. 212
Fox-hunting, ii. 339 _seq._; iv. 359
France, Royal tour in, i. 191;
relations with, ii. 24; iii. 8;
Second Empire, ii. 38
Franchise Bill of 1884, iii. 36 _seq._
Francis IV, King of Naples, flight, ii. 17
Franco-British _Entente_, iii. 19; iv. 97
Franco-German war, ii. 3;
causes, ii. 29;
outbreak, ii. 32;
Sedan, and after, ii. 34 _seq._
Franco-Russian _Entente_, iii. 63; iv. 16
Frankfort, Peace Congress at, i. 119
Franz Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria,
assassinated at Sarajevo, iv. 10, 99
Frederick III, Emperor of Germany, death, iii. 51
Frederick, Empress, iii. 55
Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, i. 192
Free Trade, i. 5; iii. 32;
Budgets, 1859-65, ii. 121
Freeman, Prof. E. A., iii. 4
French Exhibition, ii. 28
French invasion scares, i. 117; ii. 10, 12 _seq._
French militarism, ii. 29
Frere, Sir Bartle, ii. 52;
policy criticized, iii. 24
Frith, W. P., R.A., ii. 316
Fry, Elizabeth, i. 192
Fugitive slave question, iii. 9 _seq._
Fuller, Miss Loie, iv. 229
_Fun_, _Bab Ballads_ and, ii. 280
Funerals, pageantry of, i. 229
Furniture, Victorian, iv. 306
Furnivall, Dr. F. J., iii. 352;
founds Browning Society, iii. 324
Gainsborough, Thomas, Duchess of Devonshire's portrait recovered, iv. 310
Gallows. _See_ Hanging.
Galsworthy, John, iv. 328
Gambetta, Léon, ii. 101;
death, iii. 35
Gambling, i. 221; iv. 113;
suppressed in Bermondsey, iii. 108
Game Laws, harsh sentences under, i. 18; ii. 43;
opposition to, i. 22
Games, Olympic, iv. 345, 347, 348
Garden suburbs, iv. 210
Garfield, President, assassinated, iii. 30
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, ii. 16 _seq._, 102, 216
Garrett, Elizabeth, M.D., ii. 248, 258
Garrotting scare, i. 134; ii. 48
Gas-stoves introduced, i. 78
Gas _v._ electricity, iii. 204 _seq._
General Elections, 1874, iii. 26;
1900, iv. 44;
1906, iv. 58, 124-5;
1910, iv. 67, 69
George I, King, statue, ii. 151
George IV, King, i. 188
George V, King, birth, ii. 181;
visit to Ireland, iii. 231;
and German naval menace, iv. 63;
coronation, iv. 227;
attacks dragon of apathy, iv. 227
George I, King of Greece, iv. 25;
assassinated, iv. 83
George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd, visits Germany (1908), iv. 64;
and Upper Chamber reform, iv. 69, 72;
and national insurance, iv. 86;
and Marconi scandal, iv. 88;
land campaign, iv. 90, 116-8;
his equanimity, iv. 91;
and dukes, iv. 92, 94;
Budget of 1914, iv. 97;
and old age pensions, iv. 130;
Limehouse speech, iv. 132;
and Education Act of 1902, iv. 148;
and Woman Suffrage, iv. 179
George, Henry, and Socialism, iii. 75 _seq._
German Women's Navy League, iv. 64
Germany, naval beginnings, ii. 18;
and growth, iii. 10;
naval policy, ii. 25; iv. 85;
militarism, iii. 35, 40, 42; iv. 85;
momentous year (1888), iii. 51;
and slave trade in Africa, iii. 34;
expedition to Kiao-Chow, iv. 27;
treatment of Poles, iv. 47-8;
and Baghdad railway, iv. 75;
complains of being isolated, iv. 77;
Bethmann-Hollweg's Army Bill, iv. 84;
and Alsace, iv. 85;
declares war on Russia and France, iv. 101
Germany, relations with, iii. 8; iv. 73, 80;
competes in naval armaments and trade, iv. 11;
trade competition, iv. 24, 122;
menace, iv. 55, 56, 75, 78, 98, 192-3
Giffen, Sir Robert, statistician, iii. 72
Gilbert, Sir John, R.A., iv. 303-4
Gilbert, W. S., ii. 272, 288, 291;
relations with _P._, ii. 280 _seq._;
_Patience_, iii. 258;
on Sir H. Tree as Hamlet, iii. 353;
_Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_, iii. 356;
collaboration with Sullivan, iii. 356
Gilbert, W. S., and Sullivan, operas, iii. 363 _seq._;
at Savoy Theatre, iii. 364 _seq._;
sever partnership, iii. 366; iv. 338
Gilchrist, Connie, actress, iii. 354
Girton College, ii. 261;
extensions, iii. 116 _seq._;
girl, 1886, iii. 120 _seq._
Gissing, George, novels, iii. 267;
and _P._, iii. 321
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., i. 5, 131; ii. 39 _ill._, 270;
policy, ii. 4;
and Indian Mutiny, ii. 7;
and Fenianism, ii. 26;
Irish Church resolutions, ii. 29;
and Franco-German war, ii. 31;
legislation, ii. 38 _seq._;
1st administration, ii. 42;
and American civil war, ii. 68;
and reform, ii. 79;
at Barrow-in-Furness, ii. 84;
resolution on Irish disestablishment, ii. 113 _seq._;
financial omniscience, ii. 121 _seq._;
and Royal grants, ii. 187 _seq._;
foreign policy, ii. 192;
administration satirized, ii. 291;
and Bulgarian atrocities, iii. 3;
2nd administration reviewed, iii. 4 _seq._;
resigns Liberal leadership, 1875, iii. 8;
retires temporarily, iii. 12;
anti-Turkish bias, iii. 14 _seq._;
and Russo-Turkish war, iii. 17;
returned to power, 1880, iii. 26;
Irish policy, iii. 27;
and _P._, iii. 35 _seq._;
75th birthday, iii. 38;
defeated, 1885, iii. 42;
return to power, 1886, iii. 44;
first Home Rule Bill, iii. 44 _seq._;
and U.S. centenary, iii. 48;
his golden wedding, iii. 60;
and Parnell, iii. 61;
and Irish rebels, iii. 80;
and German competition, iii. 108;
and Wellington College, iii. 149;
and Public Worship Regulation Bill, iii. 157 _seq._;
on ritualism, iii. 158;
on Vatican Decrees, iii, 158 _seq._;
on needy priests, iii. 172;
and visit of Prince of Wales to India, iii. 215;
and grant for Duke of Connaught's marriage, iii. 218;
and wedding dowry for Princess Beatrice, iii. 226;
and Royal grants, iii. 232;
activity, iv. 6;
and Irish Home Rule, iv. 13 _seq._;
naval policy, iv. 14;
introduces "guillotine," iv. 14;
resigns Premiership, iv. 14;
warns the Lords, iv. 15;
and Armenian atrocities, iv. 18;
and opening of Kiel Canal, iv. 19;
Armenian crusade, iv. 24;
death, iv. 32 _seq._
Glaisher, James, F.R.S., ii. 142
Goddard, Arabella, ii. 243, 297 _seq._
Godfrey, Dan, Lieutenant, iv. 343
Gog and Magog, end of, i. 154 _ill._
Gold craze of 1849, i. 79
Gold diggings, iv. 189-90
Golf, ii. 346; iii. 298 _seq._, 303; iv. 353;
lines on Tom Morris, iv. 353
Gomersal, E. A., the equestrian, i. 155
Gordon, General, iii. 6;
in Egypt, iii. 36, 38;
memorial to, iii. 38 _seq._, 180
Gorham case, i. 100
Gorst, Sir John, iv. 58;
and education of children, iv. 147
Goschen, 1st Viscount, and Home Rule Bill of 1886, iii. 45;
joins Salisbury Cabinet, iii. 50; iv. 18;
and free education, iii. 142
Gosse, Edmund, criticized by _P._, iii. 321
Gough, General, threatens resignation, iv. 94;
and Ulster situation, iv. 135
Gounod, M., ii. 301 _seq._
Governesses, pay of, i. 33;
treatment, ii. 233 _seq._
Grace, W. G., ii. 131; iii. 292 _seq._;
suggested knighthood, iv. 348, 349
Graham, Sir James, i. 312;
introduces Bill regulating factory labour, i. 25;
reviews postmen, i. 146 _ill._
Gramophone, iv. 331, 340
Grant, Baron Albert, ii. 152
Grant, General, ii. 22
Granville, 2nd Earl, ii. 58; iii. 8;
Foreign Minister, ii. 32;
Church Bill, ii. 116;
death, iii. 377
"Great Social Evil, The," i. 230 _ill._
Great Vance, the, iii. 353
Great War, outbreak, iv. 100-2
"Grecian bend," ii. 332
Greco-Turkish war, 1897, iv. 8, 25 _seq._
Greece, crown offered to Duke of Edinburgh, ii. 19;
relations with Turkey, iv. 99
Greenaway, Kate, iii. 221;
sets children's fashions, iii. 314
Grey of Fallodon, 1st Viscount, iv. 6, 21;
foreign policy, iv. 66;
on chance of war with Germany, iv. 73;
and President Taft, iv. 75;
and Anglo-Russian agreement in Persia, iv. 77;
and "the new diplomacy," iv. 78;
and Balkan wars, iv. 82-3, 90;
visit to Paris announced, iv. 91
Grey, Sir George, ii. 245;
and Hyde Park demonstration, ii. 80;
and birth of Prince of Wales, ii. 181
Grisi, Giulia, i. 277, 284; ii. 298 _seq._;
death, ii. 305
Grosvenor Gallery, iii. 331 _seq._, 336 _seq._
Grove, Lady, on the social fetish, iv. 251
Grove, Sir George, ii. 311;
director of Royal College of Music, iii. 180, 372
Guards, return of, from Crimea, i. 134;
"ragging" in the, i. 135;
Memorial, ii. 150
_Guignol, Grand_, visit to London, and _P.'s_ prophecy, iv. 326
Guilbert, Yvette, _P.'s_ verses on, iv. 316
Guinness, Sir Edward, iii. 99
Guns, eighty-one-ton, made at Woolwich, iii. 202.
_See also_ Artillery
Gunter, confectioner, i. 217
Guthrie, Anstey, _Vice Versâ_, iii. 351
Guy, Joseph, i. 85
Haden, Sir Seymour, ii. 316; iii. 200
Haggard, Sir Rider, parodied, iii. 325
Hague Peace Conference (1907), iv. 62
Hairdressing, i. 262 _ill._; ii. 325 _seq._, 329 _seq._, 338; iii. 313
Haldane, Viscount, iv. 94, 174;
and compulsory service, iv. 58;
visit to Germany (1906), iv. 60;
and Territorial force, iv. 60;
at the War Office, iv. 80;
and Ulster, iv. 95-6
Hall, Sir Benjamin (Lord Llanover), i. 92, 160
Hallé, Lady (Mme. Norman-Neruda), ii. 309; iv. 343
Hallé, Sir Charles, i. 287; ii. 297, 309 _seq._; iii. 370
Halsbury, Lord, and Upper Chamber reform, iv. 67;
and L.C.C. tramways, iv. 197
Hamilton, Lord George, iii. 70, 71; iv. 4, 58
Handel, George Frederick, ii. 297, 305, 307
Handshaking, fashionable, iii. 263
Hanging, _P._ on, ii. 49
"Happy Family" menagerie, i. 158
_Happy Land, The_, ii. 291
Harberton, Viscountess, and rational dress, iii. 305
Harcourt, Sir William, ii. 93; iii. 8, 26, 40, 97, 158, 192, 222, 228;
and Prince of Wales's Children Bill, iii. 232;
Death Duties Budget, iv. 4, 15;
and expedition to Khartum, iv. 24, 33;
and Boer war, iv. 45;
and Education Act of 1902, iv. 148
Harcourt, Mr. Lewis (Lord Harcourt), and Woman Suffrage, iv. 179
Hardie, Keir, Mr., M.P., iv. 129, 130, 132, 135;
on birth of Prince of Wales, iv. 216
Hardinge, 1st Viscount, i. 135
Hardy, Thomas, iii. 317;
_Tess_, iii. 324;
parodied, iii. 325
Hare, John, actor, ii. 290-1; iii. 352
Harlequinade, the, i. 275
Harmsworth, Alfred (Viscount Northcliffe),
founds _Daily Mail_ in 1896, iv. 295;
influence of Harmsworth _régime_, iv. 296
Harris, Joel Chandler, iii. 319, 325
Harris, Sir Augustus, iii. 362; iv. 318
Hartington, Marquess of, iii. 9, 26;
and Home Rule in 1886, iii. 45;
8th Duke of Devonshire, iii. 66; iv. 14
Hats, i. 265; ii. 324; iii. 310;
and bonnets, iii. 312;
men's, iii. 314 _seq._; iv. 259;
_matinée_ hats, etc., iv. 226, 267
Havelock, Sir Henry, ii. 6-8
Hawkshaw, Sir John, ii. 138
Haymarket Theatre, ii. 291, 297, 338; iii. 354
Haynau, General, the woman flogger, i. 254, 304
Hazlitt, William, iii. 242
Head, Sir Francis, on French invasion, i. 120
"Healtheries" Exhibition, iii. 99, 288 _seq._
Healy, Mr. Timothy, M.P., iii. 61
Heenan _v._ Sayers fight, ii. 211, 341 _seq._
Heligoland, Germany and, ii. 37;
surrender of, iii. 63
Henry, Prince, of Prussia, naval expedition to Kiao-Chow, iv. 27
"Henry of Exeter." _See_ Phillpotts, Bp.
Helps, Sir Arthur, ii. 184, 268
Herbert, J. R., R.A., caricatured, iii. 328
Herbert, Sidney, 1st Lord Herbert of Lea, i. 58, 269;
remedies hospital scandals, i. 126
Hereford, Bp. of, and Armenian atrocities, iv. 18
Herkomer, Sir Hubert, R.A., iii. 337 _seq._
Hertford, Marquess of, i. 203
"Higher criticism," ii. 102, 106
Hill, Sir Rowland, i. 36, 37, 314 _ill._;
and penny post, iii. 212;
death, iii. 75
Hirsch, Baron, bequests of, iv. 104
Hitchin Ladies' College, ii. 260.
_See also_ Girton College
Hobhouse, Miss Emily, and concentration camps for Boers, iv. 45
Holbein, Hans, iv. 310
Hollingshead, John, iii. 354;
and Covent Garden, iv. 210
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, visits England, iii. 319;
death, iv. 292
Holywell Street, i. 155
Home, Daniel D., i. 226; ii. 203 _seq._
Home Rule Bills, iii. 44 _seq._; iv. 12, 13 _seq._, 85-6, 91-2, 97-9
Homoeopathists, i. 304
Hood, Thomas, letter to Sir R. Peel, i. 16;
Sir R. Peel bestows pension on, i. 15;
_Song of the Shirt_, i. 11; ii. 56; iii. 92, 98 _seq._; iv. 277
"Hope, Anthony," iv. 282
Horatia (Nelson's daughter), i. 195
House of Commons, women admitted to gallery, i. 249;
seating of, iii. 90
House of Lords, reform needed, i. 204;
satirized by _P._, iii. 280 _seq._; iv. 15, 19;
campaign against, iv. 62, 63, 67, 72, 126, 132
Houses of Parliament, Barry's new buildings, i. 148
Housing problem, ii. 78; iii. 98 _seq._
Howell, W. D., on Dickens and Thackeray, iii. 319; iv. 22 _seq._, 30;
articles of, in _Harper's Magazine_, praised by _P._, iv. 292
Hudson, George, railway king, i. 64;
fall of, i. 68;
"King Hudson's Levée," i. 66 _ill._
Hughes, Tom, ii. 77 _seq._, 86 _seq._
Hugo, Victor, ii. 126, 273; iii. 202
Hullah, John, i. 81, 291
Hume, Joseph, i. 86
Humperdinck, Engelbert, iv. 337
Hungary, sympathy with, i. 120
Hungerford Bridge, i. 148
Hungerford Market removed, ii. 153
"Hungry 'Forties," the; emigration, i. 59;
portrait of Fine Old English Gentleman, i. 19;
of pauper, i. 20;
ragged curates, i. 97
Hunt, Holman, artist, and pre-Raphaelitism, iii. 337
Hunt, Leigh, ii. 281
Hunting, women and, ii. 238
Huxley, T. H., ii. 214, 260; iii. 102, 162
"Hyacinthus Redivivus" (Père Hyacinthe), ii. 113
Hyde Park, riots, ii. 80, 82;
demonstrations, in 1884, iii. 36;
orators, iii. 80
"Hydros," institution of, ii. 201
Hygiene, fashions in, iv. 249
Hyndman, H. M., Socialist, iii. 76, 78; iv. 130
Ibsen, Henrik, through _P.'s_ eyes, iii. 348;
_Pillars of Society_, acted, iii. 355;
_The Master Builder_ condemned, iv. 163, 315
Iddesleigh, 1st Earl of (Sir Stafford Northcote), death, iii. 50
Imperial Institute, beginnings, iii. 288
Incendiary shells and rifle-bullets invented, ii. 139
Income tax, ii. 92 _seq._, iv. 114
Incubators, i. 78
India:
Queen's new title, ii. 173 _ill._, 174;
Empress of, iii. 12, 216;
Prince of Wales's visit, in 1875, iii. 215;
Delhi Durbar, iv. 49
Indian Mutiny, ii. 4 _seq._, 16;
frontier troubles, iii. 6; iv. 8;
Tirah campaign, iv. 27
Industrial conditions and schools.
_See_ Poor and Reformatories
Industrialism, ii. 48, 58;
growth of, ii. 83
Infant Insurance Bill of 1891, iii. 144
Influenza epidemic in 1890, iii. 209
Innovations and novelties. _See_ Minor innovations and novelties
Inoculation in 1881, iii. 208
Insurance Act, iv. 88, 98
International Anti-Slavery Congress at Brussels, iii. 60
Invasion, scare of, in 1848, i. 117
Inventions, i. 77; ii. 73, 136-47; iii. 198 _seq._; iv. 181-93
"Inventories" Exhibition, iii. 288
Inverness, Duchess of, i. 16
Ireland: potato famine, i. 181, 198;
Irish Church resolutions, ii. 29;
Gladstonian measures, ii. 39;
Irish Church policy, ii. 42;
Irish Church, disestablishment, ii. 101, 113 _seq._;
state of, iii. 6, 20, 22;
obstruction of Irish Party, iii. 21 _seq._, 26, 27 _seq._, 32 _seq._;
Loyalists and Nationalists, iii. 44, 46;
under Salisbury administration, iii. 44;
suggestions for conciliation, iii. 231;
Home Rule, iv. 12, 13 _seq._;
remedial legislation in (1903), iv. 49;
Land Purchase Act, iv. 49;
Mr. Birrell as Chief Secretary, iv. 67;
Home Rule Bill of 1913-14, iv. 85-6, 97-8, 99;
National Volunteers formed, iv. 98;
Royal visits to, in 1849, i. 196, 198;
in 1861, ii. 179;
Empress of Austria in, iii. 121;
Prince and Princess of Wales, iii. 125;
Duke and Duchess of York, in 1897, iv. 220;
Queen Victoria, _ibid._;
King Edward and Queen Alexandra, in 1903, iv.
_Irish R.M., Some Experiences of an_, reviewed by _P._, iv. 287-8
Irving, Sir Henry, ii. 287 _seq._; iii. 348 _seq._, 351;
knighthood, iv. 317;
in _Cymbeline_, iv. 318;
_Robespierre_, iv. 320;
memorial verses, iv. 324
Isaacs, Sir Rufus, and Marconi scandal, iv. 88
Isabella, Queen of Spain, ii. 29
Isandhlwana, iii. 3, 23
Italian unity, struggle for, ii. 10 _seq._, 16 _seq._
Italy, friendly relations with, i. 120; iv. 19;
King Humbert of, assassinated, iv. 220
Iveagh, Lord, and housing problem of the poor, iii. 180
Jackson, Stonewall, General, ii. 22
Jacobs, W. W., "discovered" by _P._ in 1896, iv. 285
Jamaica, negro outbreak, ii. 25, 99
James, G. P. R., ii. 273
James, Henry, iv. 51;
literary style, iv. 144;
_P.'s_ estimate of, in 1896, iv. 285;
contributes to _P._, iv. 292;
influence on American writers, _ibid._
Jameson, Dr. (Sir Leander Starr), iv. 20 _seq._, 27
Jamrach, Charles, iii. 378
Japan, relations with, in 1901-2, iv. 47;
alliance with, iv. 125
Japanese, as negro, i. 226 _ill._;
ambassadors, visit of, 1862, ii. 19;
craze in the 'eighties, iii. 278;
art, cult of, iii. 343
Jayne, Dr., Bp. of Chester, iii. 174, 200
Jazz bands foreshadowed, i. 290
Jefferies, Richard, iii. 317, 322
Jefferson, Joseph, actor, ii. 278
"Jenkins," at Royal marriage, i. 193;
at home, i. 230 ill.;
on native talent, i. 278
Jenner, Dr. Edward, discoverer of vaccination, i. 314;
statue to, ii. 150
Jerome Bonaparte, Prince, iii. 58
Jerrold, Douglas, experiences in Navy, i. 5;
names Crystal Palace, i. 40;
_Black-eyed Susan_, i. 84;
and Louis Napoleon, i. 196; ii. 169, 197, 235; iii. 343; iv. 103
Jewish, disabilities, removal of, i. 26, 109 _seq._; ii. 101;
Guardians, ii. 51
Jews, attitude of _P._ towards, i. 108-11; ii. 117; iii. 166 _seq._;
iv. 160
"Jingo" and "Jingoism," origin, iii. 15 _seq._
Joachim, Joseph, Dr., ii. 309, 312; iii. 366
Johannesburg gold boom, iii. 210
Johnson, Jack, literary tastes of, iv. 360
Joinville, Prince de, i. 114
Jones, Captain Adrian, his "Quadriga," vi. 207
Jones, Ernest, Chartist, i. 55; ii. 88
Jones, Henry Arthur, iv. 318, 321
Jordan, Mrs., i. 198
Journalism, Victorian, i. 237; ii. 145 _seq._, 172;
and letters, iii. 317-28;
children in, iv. 293;
altered status of, _ibid._;
censorship of war correspondents by Japan, _ibid._;
new, iv. 296;
influence on pastime, _ibid._;
tendency to condense everything, iv. 298
Jowett, Benjamin, Dr., ii. 101, 110 _seq._, 134
Judges. _See_ Lawyers.
Jujitsu, introduced, in 1899, iv. 356
Jullien, Louis Antoine, musician, i. 287 _ill._;
_P.'s_ farewell to, i. 290;
sad end of, i. 291; ii. 306; iii. 369
Juries, women on, iii. 129
Kandahar, Lord Roberts's march to, iii. 26
Karsavina, Mme., iv. 229
Kean, Charles, disparaged, i. 271;
made an F.S.A., i. 276;
his enunciation ridiculed, ii. 283; iii. 350
Keble, Rev. John, ritual attacked, i. 104;
poetry belittled, iii. 151
Keene, Charles, _P._ artist, ii. 16, 104, 126;
draws for _Once a Week_, ii. 269, 312;
death, and estimate of, iii. 342
Kemble, Adelaide and Fanny, i. 276, 278;
Charles, i. 276
Kendal, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 291;
Mrs., on social position of actors, iii. 350
Kenealy, Dr., i. 88;
counsel for the "Claimant," ii. 210;
as M.P., iii. 9
Kensington, joined to Central London, iii. 177
"Kensitite" demonstrations, iv. 158
Kenyon-Slaney, Colonel, and Education Act of 1902, iv. 148
Khartum, iii. 3, 6;
tragedy of, iii. 38 _seq._;
expedition to, iv. 24;
occupied by Kitchener, iv. 30
Khiva, Russian occupation of, ii. 38
Kiel, Germany acquires, ii. 25;
Canal opened, iv. 19
Kikuyu controversy, iv. 160
Kimberley relieved, iv. 39
King Coffee, iv. 19
King, Bp. of Lincoln, trial of, iii. 174
Kingsley, Charles, ii. 102, 269, 336;
historical romances of, iii. 374
Kingsley, Henry, ii. 138
Kingsway Opera House, iv. 201
Kipling, Rudyard, iii. 317;
welcomed by _P._, iii. 323; iv. 51;
varied criticisms of, iv. 281;
_The Jungle Book_, iv. 282;
the "Tommy Atkins business," iv. 282;
_Stalky_ and _The Islanders_ "crabbed" by _P._, _ibid._;
congratulated on gaining Nobel Prize in 1907, _ibid._
Kitchener, 1st Earl, iv. 8;
and Fashoda incident, iv. 28, 30;
success at Omdurman, iv. 28, 30;
takes Khartum, iv. 30;
in Boer war, iv. 40, 46;
returns to England, iv. 47
Knickerbockers, ii. 335 _seq._;
golfers', iv. 263;
for women, iv. 266-7
Knight, Charles, i. 146; ii. 281
Knocker-wrenching, pastime of, i. 220
Kossuth, Louis, i. 314;
and Palmerston, i. 72;
Turkey refuses to surrender, i. 120
Krüger, President, telegram to, from Wilhelm II, iv. 20, 21, 27, 38,
39, 40;
confers with Sir A. Milner, iv. 36 _seq._;
arrives in France, iv. 40
"Kulturkampf," iii. 19
Kyrle Society, and the working classes, iii. 288;
criticised by _P._, iii. 334
Lablache, Luigi, i. 277, 283
Labouchere, Henry, iii. 46, 75;
and Royal grants, iii. 226, 232;
and statue of John Bright, iv. 206
Labour, organized, ii. 56 _seq._; iii. 85; iv. 13;
delegates, ii. 65 _seq._
Labour Party, ii. 43, 86 _seq._; iv. 124-6, 136;
and Liberals, ii. 86 _seq._;
factor in elections, iv. 58
Labour problems, ii. 56 _seq._
_See also_ Capital and labour, Trade unions
Lacrosse in England, iii. 296
Ladas, Lord Rosebery wins Derby with, in 1894, iv. 359
"Lady helps," proposed introduction, iii. 270
_La Grande Duchesse_, ii. 290, 305
Lamb, Charles, centenary, iii. 317;
_P.'s_ admiration of, iv. 278
Lancashire: cotton famine, ii. 66 _seq._;
mill-owners, profiteering, ii. 72
Land Acts (Ireland):
1870, ii. 39;
1885 and 1887, iii. 50; 1891, iii. 65;
1903 (Land Purchase Act), iv. 49
Land League, iii. 33
Landseer, Sir Edwin, R.A., i. 295; ii. 318 _seq._
Lang, Andrew, iii. 298; iv. 299
Lansdowne, 3rd Marquess of, i. 203; ii. 4
Lansdowne, 5th Marquess of, iv. 4, 6, 66;
and Upper Chamber reform, iv. 67;
and Trade Disputes Bill, iv. 126
Larkin, Jim, Irish labour leader, iv. 13, 86;
and strike of Dublin transport workers, iv. 134
Laureateship, the, i. 179, 251;
_P._ advocates discontinuance, iv. 227
Laurie, Sir Peter, i. 306
Law, Mr. Bonar, defeated at polls, 1906, iv. 58;
supports Sir E. Carson and Ulster, iv. 86;
and Home Rule Bill of 1914, iv. 98
Law Courts built, iii. 179
Lawn tennis, ii. 347 _seq._; iii. 295 _seq._, 303; iii. 132;
_v._ golf, iii. 299;
an international pastime, iv. 347
Lawrence, Sir Henry, ii. 7
Lawrence, Sir John (1st Baron), death, iii. 374
Lawyers, i. 232 _seq._;
harsh sentences, i. 18, 19;
judicial levity censured, i. 233
Lear, Edward, ii. 31
Lee, General Robert, ii. 22
Leech, John; and sport, i. 173;
and street noises, i. 159;
his women, ii. 238, 239;
his sportsmen, ii. 339 _seq._;
tribute by Ruskin, iii. 343;
his children and girls, iv. 136, 167
Leicester Square, i. 147;
conditions, ii. 151
Leighton, Lord, elected P.R.A., iii. 332;
character and art of, iv. 303
Lemon, Mark, 1st editor of _P._, i. 112, 159; ii. 280;
as playwright, iii. 343
Lennox, Lord W., i. 202
Leno, Dan, iii. 356; iv. 318
Leo XIII, Pope, golden jubilee of, iii. 48;
death, iv. 160
Leopold I, King of the Belgians, death, ii. 25
Leopold II, King of the Belgians, character, iii. 60;
and Congo atrocities, iv. 55
Léotard, acrobat, ii. 238
Lesseps, Count Ferdinand de, ii. 19
Levées, i. 191
Lever, Charles, ii. 273; iii. 340
Licensing Act, 1872, ii. 96
Liddon, H. P., Canon, attacked by _P._, iii. 151
Lidgett, Rev. J. S., and L.C.C., iii. 194
Life, the simple, derided by _P._, iv. 248, 249
Lightfoot, Dr., Bp. of Durham, and the stage, ii. 295
Li Hung Chang in England, iv. 24
Limericks, iii. 325 _seq._
Lincoln, Abraham, ii. 19, 21 ill., 67 _ill._;
President of U.S., ii. 17;
_P._ and, ii. 22 _seq._, 66, 71
Lincoln's Inn Fields, i. 147
Lind, Jenny, i. 281, 282; ii. 299, 304;
death, iii. 360
Lipton, Sir Thomas, and America Cup, iv. 346-7
Liquid-fire bombs invented, ii. 139
Liquor Laws, iii. 34
Liszt, Franz, i. 294; ii. 297 _seq._, 307;
visits England, iii. 356, 367
Literature, i. 233 _seq._; ii. 266-81; iii. 317-28; iv. 274-93
Living, cost of, _ill._, ii. 91
Livingstone, David, missionary and explorer, i. 314; ii. 52, 214;
death, ii. 119
Lohmann, George, cricketer, iii. 294
London, i. 141 _seq._; ii. 148-66; iii. 177-97; iv. 194-212;
cabs and paving of, i. 141;
'buses, i. 143;
lighting and police, i. 145;
postmen, i. 146;
churchyards, cholera and typhus, i. 152;
Bill to reform Corporation, i. 154;
mendicants and organ-grinders, i. 159;
State banquet in City, i. 185 _ill._;
Underground, ii. 136, 153 _seq._; iii. 190;
(Electric railways), iv. 198;
bridges, ii. 149 _seq._;
statues, ii. 150 _seq._, 162;
historic buildings demolished, ii. 154 _seq._;
relics, disposal of, ii. 155;
City churches, demolished, ii. 156;
historic buildings, restored, ii. 157;
inns, ii. 157;
parks and commons, ii. 158;
Alexandra Palace, ii. 158 _seq._;
Pantheon, ii. 159;
Tattersall's, ii. 159 _seq._;
National Gallery, ii. 161;
Albert Hall opened, ii. 162;
exhibitions, ii. 162;
restaurants, ii. 162;
Big Ben, ii. 162, 164;
cabs and omnibuses, ii. 164 _seq._; iii. 189 _seq._;
garrotting scare, ii. 165 _seq._;
street processions, iii. 80;
Sunday bands in parks, iii. 108;
School Board, iii. 138 _seq._, 142;
improvements in lighting, iii. 183 _seq._;
restaurants, iii. 186 _seq._;
parks, suggested improvement, iii. 187 _seq._;
fogs and smoke, iii. 190 _seq._; iv. 202-3;
L.C.C., iii. 192 _seq._;
traffic, revolutionized by motor, iv. 194;
Thames, state of, iv. 200;
police, iv. 208-9;
suburbs, iv. 209-10;
London Museum, opened, iv. 210-12
Londonderry, 4th Marquess of, i. 203
Londonderry, Marchioness of, ii. 251
Longfellow, H. W., iii. 319
Lord's Cricket Ground, ii. 345; iii. 294 _seq._
Lorne, Marquis of (afterwards 9th Duke of Argyll), ii. 184, 186 _seq._
Louis Napoleon. _See_ Napoleon III
Louis Philippe, King, i. 54, 191 _ill._
Louise, Princess, betrothal, ii. 184
Louise, Princess Royal, iii. 219;
betrothed to Earl of Fife, 1889, iii. 232
Louise, Mme., iii. 310
Lovett, William, drafts the People's Charter, i. 49
Lowe, Rt. Hon. Robert, _ill._, ii. 39;
leads Adullamite Liberals, ii. 79;
and 1867 Reform Bill, ii. 85, 96;
caricatured, ii. 291
Lowell, J. R., iii. 19;
leaves England, iii. 319
Lowther Arcade, i. 156;
closed, iv. 202
Loyson, C. (Père Hyacinthe), ii. 113
Lubbock, Sir John, his Shop Hours Bill, iii. 90;
resigns from L.C.C., iii. 194.
_See also_ Avebury, Lord
Lucan, 3rd Earl of, charges against, i. 135;
and Indian Mutiny, ii. 7
Lucknow, 1st relief of, ii. 7;
capture of, ii. 8
Lunatic asylums, cruelty in, iii. 96
Lyndhurst, 1st Baron, and Navy, ii. 13, 16
Lyttelton, 4th Baron, ii. 60, 92
Lytton, 1st Baron, and Tennyson, i. 206; ii. 268;
travestied by _P._, ii. 273;
_Eugene Aram_, iii. 143
Lytton, 1st Earl, policy in Afghan war, iii. 26;
parodied by _P._, iii. 325
Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1st Baron), ii. 275
Macdonald, A., M.P., ii. 43, 88; iii. 74
MacDonald, Ramsay, M.P., iv. 134
McDougall, Sir John, of the L.C.C., iii. 194
McKenna, Rt. Hon. R., iv. 62
McKinley, William, President of U.S., iv. 36;
elected, iv. 23;
assassinated, iv. 47
Mackonochie, Rev. A. H., ritualist, ii. 101, 108; iii. 160
MacMahon, Marshal, iii. 19; iii. 328
Macready, W. C., actor, ii. 287; iii. 344, 350;
death, ii. 292
Maeterlinck, Maurice, iv. 314, 319, 328;
parodied, iii. 325
Mafeking relieved, iv. 40
Magee, W. C., Archbp. of York, ii. 116;
on drink, iii. 103;
and child insurance, iii. 144
Majuba, iii. 3, 6, 30
Malibran, Mme., i. 277; ii. 299
Malmesbury, 3rd Earl of, i. 132;
resigns leadership of H. of Lords, ii. 31;
and modern languages at public schools, ii. 128, 245
Manchester, School, in politics, i. 134;
"Martyrs," ii. 27;
Corporation accounts, iii. 97
Manners, Lord John (7th Duke of Rutland), i. 24; ii. 148
Manners:
smoking before ladies, iii. 262;
colloquialisms and cosmetics, _ibid._;
decline of ballroom, iv. 234-5
Manning, H. E., Cardinal, iii. 34;
in dock strike, iii. 81;
and Housing Commission in 1884, iii. 99;
and Vatican Decrees, iii. 159;
observance of Lent, iii. 162;
death, iii. 174
Manns, Sir August, ii. 309, 311
Mapleson, Colonel J. H., operatic manager, ii. 301 _seq._; iii. 181
Marble Arch, i. 148
Marchant, Colonel, occupies Fashoda, iv. 28
Marconi, Guglielmo, and wireless telegraphy, iv. 186
Marconi scandal, iv. 88, 90-91
Margarine, advent of, ii. 144
Mario, Cavaliere di Candia, i. 284; ii. 301, 303, 306
Marriage, laws, i. 21, 96;
economics of, ii. 262 _seq._
Married Women's Property Act, 1882, iii. 128
Martin, Sir Theodore, iv. 277
Martineau, Dr. James, iv. 146
Marx, Karl, ii. 190 _seq._; iv. 129
Mary, Princess, of Teck, betrothed to Duke of Clarence, iii. 234;
marries Duke of York, iv. 215
Mascagni, P., iii. 362
Maskelyne, J. N., ii. 205; iii. 252
Master and Servant Act, ii. 86
Masters _v._ men, ii. 74; iii. 72 _seq._
_See also_ Capital and Labour
Mathew, Father, i. 196
Mathews, Charles, i. 228, 275
Maud, Princess, of Wales, married, iv. 218
Maule, Mr. Justice, i. 21
Maurice, Rev. F. D., ii. 102, 110;
proposes college for working women, ii. 56;
and Colenso, ii. 112;
death, ii. 118;
modernist views, ii. 134
May, Phil, iv. 311;
his debt to Sambourne, _ibid._
May Day and Labour, i. 62
May Meetings, Exeter Hall, i. 94
Mayhew, Henry, i. 4;
death, iii. 328
Maynooth Grant, i. 105
Mazurka, the, i. 213
Medical profession, women's admission to, ii. 248 _seq._;
beggarly remuneration of, iii. 273 _seq._
Medical students, i. 240, 241; iii. 274.
_See also_ Doctors, Surgeons
Mediums, ii. 203 _seq._
Melba, Mme., iii. 356, 360; iv. 333, 334
Melbourne, 2nd Viscount, i. 166
Members of Parliament, payment of, iv. 132
Mendelssohn, Felix, ii. 297, 300 _note_, 307;
_Elijah_, ii. 308
Menken, Adah Isaacs, actress, ii. 285, 288 _seq._
Meredith, George, and _P._, ii. 268 _seq._; iii. 324; iv. 270;
burlesqued, iv. 276;
praised, in 1909, _ibid._
Methuen, General, 3rd Baron, captured by Boers, iv. 46
Metropolitan Asylums Board, iii. 96;
Interments Bill, i. 153;
Police Act, i. 144
Meyerbeer, Giacomo, ii. 298, 301, 303
"Midas, Sir Gorgius," iii. 150, 166
Middle classes, heavily taxed, ii. 28;
_P._ and, ii. 44;
backbone of country, ii. 88;
hit by income tax, ii. 93;
hardships, ii. 95; iv. 110, 127
Militiamen, _ill._, ii. 12
Mill, J. S., iv. 129;
and General Eyre, ii. 25, 81;
and Irish Suspension Bill, 1866, ii. 26;
favours capital punishment, ii. 97 _seq._; iii. 100;
his _Subjection of Women_, ii. 250;
and Woman Suffrage, ii. 252-6
Millais, Sir J. E., ii. 269, 312;
"Mariana" caricatured, i. 300;
_Hearts are Trumps_, ii. 317;
opportunism, iii. 331;
pre-Raphaelitism, iii. 337;
_P.'s_ tribute to, iv. 303
Millikin, E. J., creator of _P.'s_ 'Arry, iii. 106;
death (1897), iv. 300
Milner, 1st Viscount, ii. 277;
in Boer war, iv. 11;
confers with Krüger, iv. 36 _seq._;
and National Service Bill (1909), iv. 66
Milton, tercentenary of, iv. 278
Miners, high wages, ii. 89, 92 _seq._;
action to keep up wages, iii. 74;
strikes, iii. 83 _seq._; iv. 110-11;
prosperity of, iv. 121;
"ca' canny" methods, ii. 95
Minor innovations and novelties, ii. 142 _seq._; iii. 199 _seq._
Mitchell, David, Sec. Zool. Society, i. 160
Modern languages, ii. 128;
inefficient instruction in, iv. 154
Moltke, Count, iii. 54;
death, iii. 64
Monarchies, _P._ and, ii. 169 _seq._
Monasticism, attempted revivals, ii. 101, 106
Monocle, the, i. 266
Montefiore, Sir Moses, death, iii. 167
Montessori, Madame, system anticipated, i. 88, 89;
and fairy-tales for children, iv. 139
Montez, Lola, i. 255, 280
Montgomery, James, ii. 64, 268
Moody, D. L., visits England, iii. 168
Moore, George, iii. 254, 321; iv. 113
Morgan, J. Pierpont, iii. 276
Morley, Henry, and Rabelais, iii. 317
Morley of Blackburn, 1st Viscount, iii. 61;
_Life of Gladstone_, ii. 191;
Chief Sec. for Ireland, iii. 44 _seq._;
and P. of Wales's Children Bill, iii. 232;
retires, iv. 4;
naval policy, iv. 14;
and expedition to Khartum, iv. 24;
and Boer war, iv. 39;
and anti-Lords campaign, iv. 63
Morris, William, iii. 255, 329
Morrow, George, iv. 192
Motor introduced, iv. 181-3
Motoring, effect on appetite, iv. 245
Moustaches, iv. 264
Mozart, W. A., ii. 297, 301, 307;
_Don Giovanni_, ii. 299
Müller, Franz, murderer, ii. 22;
executed, ii. 136
Municipal Reform, iii. 97
Murray of Elibank, 1st Baron, and Marconi scandal, iv. 91
Museums, Sunday opening of, i. 40
Music, i. 286 _seq._, 290, 291, 293; ii. 282-319; iii. 343-73;
iv. 341-4
Musical prodigies, iii. 369
Music-halls, ii. 295 _seq._; iii. 15 _seq._, 372 _seq._;
songs, ii. 312;
popularity, iv. 328;
salaries, _ibid._;
Sarah Bernhardt and Tree at, iv. 330;
Sir James Barrie writes for, _ibid._
Myers, F. W. H., iii. 207
Nansen, Dr. F., Arctic explorer, iv. 190
Napier, Sir Charles, i. 116
Napier, Lord, of Magdala (Sir Robert Napier), ii. 27;
and retired officers, iii. 276
Napoleon I, centenary, ii. 29
Napoleon III, a special constable, i. 54;
ally of England, i. 124;
as modern Damocles, i. 195 _ill._;
_P.'s_ hostility to, i. 122, 306;
friction with, ii. 3, 10, 17;
as porcupine, _ill._, ii. 11;
proposed army loan, ii. 29, 34, 36;
his vision of Napoleon I, _ill._, ii. 33;
memorial verses, ii. 194 _seq._
Nares, Captain, Arctic explorer, iii. 207, 328
Natal campaign, correspondence, ii. 112
National defence, iii. 66-71; iv. 11, 55-7, 58-61, 63, 65-6
National Gallery, neglect of treasures, i. 298
National Guard suggested, i. 118
National insurance scheme, iv. 64
National outlook, 1857-74, ii. 3-116;
1874-1892, iii. 3-212
National Portrait Gallery Bill, i. 303
National Rifle Association, iii. 69, 302
National Service Bill of 1909, iv. 66
Naval armaments, race of, iii. 10
Naval warfare of the future, ii. 140 _seq._
Navvy corps for Crimea, i. 131
Navy.
Estimates, protests against, i. 120;
reorganized and increased, ii. 18;
Naval Defence Bill of 1889, iii. 71;
status of engineers, iii. 209, 211;
Gladstone's policy, iv. 14;
and German menace, iv. 60;
advance in gunnery, iv. 62;
inadequate preparations, iv. 66;
expenditure, proposed reduction of (1911), iv. 75;
estimates (1912), iv. 78, 91, 92.
_See also_ Armoured ships
Nelson centenary, iv. 56
Nelson's monument, i. 147; iv. 207;
daughter and grandchildren, i. 253
New English Art Club, iii. 328 _seq._
New rich, and the aristocracy, ii. 198 _seq._;
and art, iii. 277
New Scotland Yard built, iii. 182
New South Wales, centenary, iii. 55
Newcastle, 4th Duke of, i. 106
Newgate Prison demolished, iii. 179
Newman, refuses cardinal's hat, iii. 162;
Cardinal, iii. 376 _seq._
Newnham College, extension of, iii. 116 _seq._
Nicholas, King, of Montenegro, iv. 82
Nicholas I, Tsar, i. 113, 192
Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, proposes general disarmament, iv. 32, 34,
52-4;
grants constitutional government, iv. 54;
coronation, iv. 218
Nicholson, John, Mutiny hero, ii. 7
Nightingale, Florence, and Crimean hospitals, i. 126 _seq._;
rewarded by nation, i. 128, 134-5;
_P.'s_ statue for, i. 313, ii. 256
Nihilism in Russia, iii. 30
Norfolk, 13th Duke of, proposes curry powder as food for poor, i. 17
Normanby, 1st Marquess of, i. 203
Northcliffe, 1st Viscount, absence from England, iv. 92
Northcote, Sir Stafford (1st Earl of Iddesleigh), iii. 12, 21, 34
Northumberland, Duke of, iv. 66
Norton, Charles Eliot, on Spanish-American war, iv. 31
Novello, Clara, ii. 308
Novelties. _See_ Minor innovations
Nursery rhymes, cult of, foreshadowed, iii. 261
Nurses: Royal Red Cross decoration instituted, iii. 124;
_P.'s_ attitude to, iii. 125
Oates, Captain, on Scott's Antarctic expedition, iv. 190
Ober-Ammergau Passion Play, iii. 348
O'Brien, Smith, i. 198
O'Brien, William, M.P., and visit of Prince of Wales to Ireland,
iii. 226;
and Ulster, iv. 92;
and Home Rule Bill, iv. 97
O'Connell, Daniel, i. 165, 196, 306
O'Connor, Feargus, i. 49
Odger, George, ii. 86 _seq._, 190 _seq._
O'Donnell, F. H., M.P., iii. 21
Offenbach, Jacques, ii. 305 _seq._;
death, iii. 359
O'Gorman, Major, M.P., iii. 9
Ojibbeway Indians, i. 283
Old age pensions, iv. 67, 119, 130
Old Bailey demolished, iii. 179
Oliphant, Laurence, his _Piccadilly_, iii. 254
Ollivier, Emile, ii. 31
Omdurman, Kitchener's success at, iv. 28, 30
Omnibuses, i. 143, 144 _ill._; ii. 164; iii. 189, 190; iv. 194, 198
_Once a Week_, ii. 269, 312
Opera, i. 276 _seq._;
"Jenkins" on, i. 278; ii. 282-319; iii. 356-66;
opera bouffe, ii. 285;
English opera houses, fate of, iii. 181 _seq._;
German, French, Italian and English, iv. 332-3;
national scheme revived in 1899, iv. 333
Orchestral music, ii. 308 _seq._
Orton, Arthur, ii. 206 _seq._
Osborne, Lord Sidney Godolphin, i. 243
Otter-hunting denounced, i. 173
Oudh pacified, ii. 8
"Ouida," parodied, iii. 324;
on the "New Woman," iv. 165
Oxford, Bp. of (Wilberforce), i. 95, 96; ii. 56, 106, 118
Oxford University, Heresy hunt at, iii. 110 _seq._;
reactionaries at, ii. 133-5;
Keble College, founded, iii. 151;
new Science degree, iii. 151 _seq._;
cosmopolitanism, iii. 152;
Eleutheria Hall, _ibid._;
agriculture at, _ibid._;
compared with Birmingham, iv. 155;
and Rhodes scholars, iv. 156;
compulsory Greek at, iv. 157;
Lord Curzon and reform of, iv. 157;
women admitted, iv. 158;
refuses B.A. degree to women, iv. 167
Paderewski, I. J., advent of, iii. 356, 368
Pageant mania, iv. 60, 230, 246
_Pall Mall Gazette, The_, ii. 164, 191, 284; iii. 15;
_P.'s_ controversy with, iii. 321; iv. 118
Palmerston, 3rd Viscount, and agriculture, i. 24;
and Kossuth, i. 72, 120;
dismissed, i. 121 _ill._, 122;
moves vote of thanks to troops, i. 133;
returned to power (1857), ii. 4, 20;
death, ii. 24, 42, 43, 70, 71 _seq._, 74, 79, 122, 216, 266, 272, 341
Pan-Anglican synod, _ill._, ii. 119
Panmure, 2nd Lord, telegram to Lord Raglan, "Take care of Dowb,"
i. 138, 206
Pantheon, The, i. 156
Pantomime, degeneracy of, iii. 354 _seq._; iv. 143
Paris, Peace Congress at, i. 118;
siege of, ii. 34, 36;
Exhibitions, iii. 289; iv. 40
Parliament, House of Lords and Franchise Bill, iii. 37;
women as M.P.s, iii. 128;
Act of 1910, iv. 15, 67, 85-6
Parliamentary obstruction, iii. 6, 9, 21 _seq._;
oath question, iii. 26
Parnell, Charles Stewart, iii. 6, 21;
speeches in America, iii. 22;
censured by _P._, iii. 23, 32 _seq._, 40;
and _The Times_, iii. 50, 57;
divorce case, iii. 61;
death, iii. 64, 85
Parodies, iii. 324 _seq._; iv. 284-9
Parry, John, ii. 310, 312; iii. 172
Parry, Sir Hubert, _P._ and _Judith_, iii. 372
Pasta, Giuditta, i. 277
Pastimes, ii. 211, 339-49; iii. 287-303
Patti, Mme. Adelina, ii. 299 _seq._, 303, 309; iii. 357, 359;
returns to Covent Garden, iv. 333
Pavlova, Mme. Anna, iv. 229, 239
Peabody, George, ii. 52 _seq._; iii. 180
Peace, Charles, trial, iii. 100
Peace Congress at Frankfort, i. 119;
Paris, i. 118
Peary, Commander R. E., Arctic explorer, iv. 181;
reaches North Pole, iv. 190
Peel, Sir Robert, and Tom Hood, i. 15;
dismisses Rowland Hill, i. 36;
_P.'s_ monument to, i. 53 _ill._;
tribute to, i. 85;
and Colonel Fawcett's widow, i. 114, 115 _ill._;
entertains Queen and Prince Albert, i. 173;
as Knave of Spades, i. 305 _ill._; ii. 187
Peel, 1st Viscount, iv. 18
Pélissier, H., iv. 327
People's Budget, iv. 6, 72
Persia, Anglo-Russian agreement in 1911, iv. 77
Persigny, Comte de, ii. 17
Peterborough, Bp. of, and Public Worship Regulation Bill, iii. 157
Pets, fashionable, i. 213; iv. 247-8
Phelps, Samuel, i. 271, 274; ii. 282; iii. 350
Philanthropy, practical, efforts of, ii. 48, 52, 53 _ill._;
pseudo-, iv. 234
Philharmonic Society, the, i. 285
Phillpotts, Bp., "Henry of Exeter," i. 95
Phillipps (Halliwell), Dr., ii. 270
Phillips, Stephen, as actor, iii. 352;
and the poetic drama, iv. 312, 322
Phoenix Park murders, iii. 6, 32, 50
Photography, i. 227; iii. 212
Piccadilly, scheme to widen, iv. 201
Piccolomini, Marietta, i. 277; ii. 299
Pierce, President, open letter to, i. 134
Pigeon shooting, ii. 343
"Pimlico Pavilion," i. 149
Pinero, Sir A. W., iv. 315, 317
Ping-pong, tyranny of, iv. 356
Pius IX, Pope, i. 99; ii. 113; iii. 10, 19 _seq._
Plays, censorship of, i. 273
Plevna, siege of, iii. 16
Plimsoll, Samuel, M.P., ii. 39 _ill._, 99;
and coffin-ships, iii. 86
Plumer, General Lord, iv. 8
Plunket, Rt. Hon. David (Lord Rathmore), and Sunday boating, iii. 165;
unveils Gordon Memorial, iii. 180
Plural voting, iv. 86, 92, 98
Pneumatic tyres, patent, ii. 138; iii. 300
Poets, activity of, in Boer war, subsequent slump in, iv. 288;
Mr. Gosse on new, iv. 291
Poincaré, M., French President, iv. 78
Poland, police-ridden, ii. 19;
trade unionists and, ii. 42 _seq._
Police, i. 144 _seq._;
special constables, i. 55 _ill._;
inefficiency of, ii. 165-6; iii. 100 _seq._;
tributes to, iii. 228; iv. 208-9
Polka, the, i. 209, 210-11 _ill._, 283
Polytechnic, the, i. 155
Poor, the condition of, i. _frontispiece_, 3 _seq._, 6, 7 _ill._, 8,
10, 14-15 _ill._, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27;
sweating system, i. 11, 17, 38, 41 _ill._;
ragged schools, i. 83, 84;
Poor Law, Report of (1834), i. 59;
"Poor Child's Nurse," i. 153 _ill._;
and Poor Law system, ii. 48, 259;
inspectors, ii. 51; children, iv. 106-7;
insurance scandal, iv. 107.
_See also_ Chartism, "Hungry Forties"
"Pops," the, ii. 309, 311
Port Arthur, fall of, iv. 52
Portugal, King and Crown Prince of, assassinated, iv. 225;
becomes republic, iv. 73;
ex-King Manoel of, iv. 225
Postmen, i. 37, 38, 146 _ill._; iii. 93
Potato famine, Irish, i. 181, 198
Preparatory schools, athletic craze at, iii. 148; iv. 150-1, 154
Pre-Raphaelites, i. 299 _seq._;
caricatured, _ibid._;
_P._ converted to, i. 302;
and æstheticism, iii. 255, 331, 337
Press, and Tichborne case, iii. 241;
_P.'s_ relations with, i. 235 _seq._
Prevention of Corruption Act, iv. 127
Prevention of Cruelty Bill of 1887, iii. 144 _seq._
Prince Imperial, killed in Zululand, proposed memorial to, iii. 24
Prince of Wales's Children Bill, iii. 232
Prison _v._ workhouse, ii. 48 _seq._
Prisoners, Russian, treatment of, i. 129
Prize-fighting, ii. 211;
revival of, iv. 360
Prodigies, musical, _P.'s_ views on, iv. 341, 342 _ill._
Professionalism in cricket and football, iv. 349
Profiteering denounced, i. 77, 130 _ill._; ii. 47, 72; iii. 238
Profit-sharing recommended, ii. 58
Promenade Concerts, i. 289 ill.
Prophecies and forecasts, ii. 36, 38, 40 _seq._, 136-47, 183, 185
_seq._, 202, 261, 294, 34i, 345; iii. 1, 36, 38, 46, 54, 67, 83,
90, 100, 142, 145, 170, 192, 201 _seq._, 204 _seq._, 273,
299 _seq._; iv. 66, 78, 90, 93, 102, 128, 174, 180, 182-4, 186,
191-3, 202
Proportional representation, iii. 40
Prussia, fleet, ii. 29
Prusso-Danish war, ii. 3, 20 _seq._, 195
Psychology: subconscious crime, iii. 207
Public houses, ii. 44, 45 _ill._
Public schools, ii. 130 _seq._;
system, iii. 137;
athletic craze in, iii. 148;
inefficiency of, iii. 149 _seq._;
classics _v._ commerce, iii. 150 _seq._; iv. 150 _seq._;
diet at, iv. 153
Public Worship Regulation, ii. 120; iii. 157
Purchas trial, ii. 101
Pusey, Dr. E. B., i. 99, 306; ii. 104, 109; iii. 151
Quacks and doctors, i. 239
Quadrille, the, i. 209, 212
Quakers, mission to Russia, i. 125;
relieve Lancashire famine, ii. 68
_Quarterly Review_, on Willis's Rooms, i. 209;
supported by _P._ in 1886; iii. 321 _seq._
Queen Anne's Mansions built, iii. 179 _seq._
Queen's Hall concerts, i. 289; iv. 341
Quidde, Prof., of Munich, satirizes Wilhelm II, iv. 26
Rabelais, criticized by _P._, iii. 317
Rachel, Madame, ii. 236;
life-story, ii. 326 _seq._
Radium discovered, iv. 189
Ragged Schools, i. 83; ii. 51 _seq._;
and Lord Shaftesbury, i. 84
"Ragging" in Army, i. 135; iv. 254
Rag-time, iv. 331, 340
Railways, ii. 136; iii. 198 _seq._;
dangers of early, i. 62, 70 _ill._;
railway map of England, i. 62;
speculation, i. 62, 64;
mania, i. 64, 177 _ill._;
battle of gauges, i. 64;
Juggernaut of 1845, _ill._, i. 65;
_P.'s_ "rules and regulations," i. 67;
smoking saloons, i. 68;
subterranean, prophecy, _ill._, i. 68;
L. & N.W. Ry. directors criticized, i. 69;
_Bradshaw_, i. 71;
G.W.R. adopts electric telegraph, i. 72;
Royalty and travelling, i. 178;
railwaymen, ii. 74 _seq._; iii. 93;
fares, ii. 76;
Act of 1853, ii. 136;
dispute of 1907, iv. 128.
_See also_ London, Hudson
"Ranger, George," Duke of Cambridge, iii. 68;
and Sunday boating, iii. 165
"Ranji" (H.H. Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, G.B.E.), cricketer,
iii. 395;
ode to, iv. 349
"Rantoones," ii. 137 _seq._
Rarey, J. S., horse-tamer, ii. 340
Rational dress reform, i. 262; iii. 305 _seq._
Ratsey, Mrs., Royal nurse, i. 166
Reade, Charles, iii. 317;
_Foul Play_, ii. 273;
_Never Too Late to Mend_, ii. 288;
and "the Menken," ii. 289;
_The Wandering Heir_, ii. 292;
letter on condition of servants, iii. 270;
death, iii. 320;
_Drink_, iii. 353
Rebecca Riots in South Wales, i. 57
Recreation, ii. 339-49; iii. 287-303; iv. 345-60
Redmond, John, M.P., iv. 94;
and Ulster, iv. 86;
and Sir E. Carson, iv. 96
Reed, Thomas German, actor, ii. 312; iii. 372 _seq._
Reeves, J. Sims, tenor singer, ii. 308, 310 _seq._; iii. 359; iv. 343
Reform, ii. 42 _seq._, 79 _seq._
Reform Bills: 1859, ii. 10;
1860 (Russell's), ii. 16, 18, 26, 82;
1867 (Disraeli's), ii. 42, 82, 85, 252
Reform League, ii. 80 _seq._;
sympathy with Fenians, ii. 27
Reformatories, established, ii. 49
Regent's Park, suggested improvement, iii. 187
Rehan, Ada, actress, iii. 355; iv. 316
Réjane, Mme., iv. 316
Religion, i. 91 _seq._;
Exeter Hall, i. 94;
sanctimonious parade of, _ill._, i. 95;
fashionable, i. 179;
attempted exclusion, in schools, ii. 124;
and the Churches, iii. 157-76;
instruction in schools, iv. 150.
_See also_ Church, Sabbatarianism
Reminiscences, plague of, iv. 286
Repertory theatres, ii. 294
Republicanism, _ill._, ii. 189;
in England, ii. 190 _seq._
Rhodes, Cecil, on Leopold II of Belgium, iii. 60;
resigns Premiership, iv. 21;
and Jameson Raid, iv. 27;
bequest to Oxford, iv. 156
Rich classes, extravagance of, ii. 90;
ignorance satirized, ii. 227 _seq._
_See also_ New rich
Richardson, Sir B. W., hygienic theories, iii. 98
Richmond, 5th Duke of, i. 18
Richmond, Sir W. B., R.A., iii. 258;
and Burne-Jones, iii. 334;
decorates St. Paul's, iv. 201;
anti-smoke campaign, iv. 202
Richter, Dr. Hans, iii. 356, 368; iv. 334, 341
Rifle clubs, i. 122; iii. 302
Ristori, Adelaide, actress, ii. 283; iii. 345.
Ritualism, ii. 106 _seq._, 109, 120; iii. 159 _seq._
Roberts, 1st Earl, iii. 3;
march to Kandahar, iii. 26;
advocates compulsory service, iv. 11;
relieves Kimberley, iv. 39;
advance to Pretoria, iv. 40;
returns to England, iv. 42;
and national defence, iv. 56;
and National Service Bill, iv. 66
Robertson, Sir Johnston Forbes, iii. 351
Robertson, T. W., dramatist, ii. 290
Robertson, Wybrow, and Ober-Ammergau Passion Play, iii. 347
Robins, George, auctioneer, i. 155
Rogers, Rev. William, "Hang Theology Rogers," i. 106
Roller-skating, ii. 347; iii. 303;
craze, iii. 266; iv. 356
Rollins, Thomas, tried for bigamy, i. 21
Roman Catholicism, _P._ and, ii. 102
Rome, Church of, end of temporal power, ii. 118
Röntgen, Dr. W. K., discovers X-rays, iv. 189
Roosevelt, Theodore, iv. 143;
and England, iv. 11;
President of U.S., iv. 47;
alleged Jingoism, iv. 55
Rorke's Drift, iii. 23
Rosebery, 5th Earl of, iii. 228; iv. 4, 6, 26;
resigns from L.C.C., iii. 194, 196 _seq._;
becomes Premier, iv. 15;
Cabinet resigns, iv. 17;
career, iv. 17 _seq._;
resigns leadership of the Liberal Party, iv. 24;
and Upper Chamber reform, iv. 67;
and coal strike of 1893, iv. 111;
and Education Act of 1902, iv. 148;
and commercializing public schools, iv. 152;
on historical statues, iv. 206
Rosherville Gardens, i. 155
Rossa, O'Donovan, Irish rebel, iii. 21
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, connexion with _Once a Week_, ii. 269, 312;
and æsthetic movement, iii. 255, 329;
criticized by _P._, iii. 331
Rossini, G. A., composer, ii. 301
Rostand, Edmond, iv. 318, 321
Rothschild, 1st Baron, i. 110, 111
Rothschild Committee on Old Age Pensions, iv. 119
Roumania and Balkan wars of 1912-13, iv. 82
Rousseau, M., inventor of submarine warship, iv. 187-8
Royal Academy, i. 295, 297 _ill._;
"Mr. Pips" on, i. 298;
criticized, ii. 312 _seq._, 317;
and women, iii. 116.
_See also_ Academy, Royal
Royal annals, i. 165-200; ii. 169-96; iii. 215-34; iv. 215-27
Royal College of Music founded, iii. 180, 372
Royalties, foreign, subsidies for, i. 193;
_P.'s_ attitude to, ii. 192
Royalty, speeches of, criticized, ii. 179;
and entertainments, ii. 194 _seq._;
and sport, iii. 222
Rozhdestvensky, Admiral, iv. 52
Rubinstein, Anton, iv. 343;
visits England, iii. 356, 367
Rugby, headmaster of, on diet, iv. 153
Rumbold, Dr., his pill, ii. 146
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter, and anti-Lords campaign, iv. 63;
his Education Bill, 1908, iv. 150
Ruskin College, Oxford, iv. 119
Ruskin, John, ii. 275 _seq._;
and Kate Greenaway, iii. 314;
and æstheticism, iii. 255, 337;
and Lake District railways, iii. 199;
and Whistler, iii. 331;
elected to Slade professorship, iii. 338;
and _P._, iii. 338 _seq._;
on Leech, iii. 343
Russel, Alexander, of the _Scotsman_, i. 238;
death, iii. 327
Russell, Lord John, _ill._, i. 110, 121;
and Tom Hood's children, i. 16;
and Chartism, i. 50 _ill._, 56;
"Finality Jack," i. 55;
resolutions on education, i. 86;
condemns Papal claims, i. 102;
Jewish disabilities, i. 111;
dissolution of Ministry, i. 122;
Watts's drawing of, i. 301;
and Reform, ii. 16, 79, 82;
earldom, ii. 15;
and Austro-Prussian war, ii. 26;
resigns, 1866, ii. 79;
death, iii. 374
Russell, Sir W. H., and Crimea scandals, i. 126;
knighted, i. 128;
controversy with Sir Garnet Wolseley, iii. 111
Russia, tries to evade treaty, i. 133;
Near Eastern question, ii. 38;
trade unionists and, ii. 42 _seq._;
relations with, iii. 3 _seq._, 8;
Jews persecuted in, iii. 63 _seq._;
revolution of 1905, iv. 52-4.
_See also_ Crimean war.
Russian ballet, iv. 99
Russo-Japanese war, iv. 8, 11, 51-4
Russo-Turkish war, iii. 3 _seq._, 14 _seq._
Sabbatarianism, i. 44, 91 _seq._, 93 _ill._; ii. 45, 102 _seq._;
iii. 162 _seq._; iv. 159;
Sunday Trading Act, i. 18;
recreation, i. 38;
museums, i. 40;
bands, i. 92;
Sunday Observance Act, ii. 44;
and drink, iii. 102;
Sunday pastime and Sunday closing, iii. 165
Safety bicycle, iii. 300
St. George's Hall, ii. 312
St. James's Hall, ii. 70, 307, 309;
demolished, iv. 204
St. James's Park, removal of cow-keepers, iii. 178
St. Leonards, 1st Baron, i. 206
St. Paul's, charge for admission to churchyard, i. 158;
Duke of Wellington monument, iv. 207
Salaries. _See_ Wages
Salisbury, 3rd Marquess of, iii. 65, 206; iv. 6;
and 1867 Reform Bill, ii. 85;
and Russia, iii. 4;
at Constantinople Conference, 1876, iii. 14;
and Eastern Question, iii. 15;
at Berlin Congress, iii. 17;
Franchise Bill, 1884, iii. 36 _seq._;
returned to power, 1886, iii. 47;
and Irish Land League, iii. 50;
and Heligoland, iii. 63;
and Housing Commission in 1884, iii. 99;
and Public Worship Regulation Bill, iii, 157 _seq._, 162;
and Disestablishment, iii. 173;
and 1893 Home Rule Bill, iv. 14;
forms 3rd Cabinet, iv. 18;
alliance with J. Chamberlain, iv. 19;
and Greco-Turkish war, iv. 26;
resignation, iv. 48;
death, iv. 49-50;
and agricultural depression, iv. 114;
not a feminist, iv. 168
Salkeld, Lieutenant, ii. 7
_Salome_, various versions and genesis of, iv. 333, 336
Salvation Army, iii. 162, 168 _seq._; iv. 162;
processions, iii. 102
Salvini, Tommaso, as Othello, iii. 344 _seq._
Sambourne, Linley, _P.'s_ delight in, iv. 311, 312
Sandow, Eugene, iv. 203
Sankey, Ira, visits England, iii. 168
Santley, Sir Charles, ii. 300, 301, 305; iii. 370
Sargent, John S., R.A., iii. 329; iv. 301, 310
Savile House, ii. 341 _note_
_Savoy_, the, magazine, attacked by _P._ in 1896, iv. 283
Sayers _v._ Heenan fight, ii. 211, 341 _seq._
Schleswig-Holstein controversy, ii. 20
Schneider, Mlle., ii. 28, 284, 285, 290, 306; iii. 359
Schneider, H. A., French ironmaster, ii. 84 _seq._
Schools: "Dotheboys Hall," i. 35; ii. 127;
of cookery, i. 81;
Ragged, i. 83, 84;
Church, i. 99;
advent of cricket-master, ii. 131;
corporal punishment, ii. 132; iii. 142;
new plutocracy invade public schools, ii. 132;
Board schools criticized, iii. 137-40;
public, fetish of games at, iii. 148 _seq._; iv. 151 _seq._;
public, inefficiency of, iii. 149 _seq._;
public, diet, iv. 153-4;
masters and boys, iv. 154
Schumann, Robert, composer, ii. 300 _note_, 308
Schumann, Madame, ii. 309; iii. 336
Scott, Capt. Robert F., R.N., Antarctic explorer, iv. 181, 190-1
Scott, Sir Percy, iv. 188;
on submarine menace, iv. 98
Seacole, Mother, i. 177, 252
Seaman, Sir Owen, iii. 325
Sectarianism, ii. 102; iv. 146
Sedan, battle of, ii. 34
Seeley, Sir John, ii. 118
Seeley, General John B., resigns, iv. 94
Selborne, 2nd Earl of, iv. 4
Self-expression, doctrine of, iii. 261; iv. 136, 140-2
Selwyn, G. A., Bp. of N. Zealand, ii. 62;
death, iii. 374
Serbia, subjugated by Turkey, iii. 14;
relations with Austria up to 1914, iv. 10;
and Balkan war of 1912, iv. 10;
King and Queen assassinated, iv. 49
Serpentine, the, i. 151
Servants, iii. 270 _seq._;
servantgalism, i. 30 _ill._; ii. 225 _seq._;
flunkeys, i. 31 _seq._;
snobbery of, i. 30, 34 _ill._;
special seats in church for, i. 32;
domestic, becoming extinct, iv. 243
Seymour, Admiral Sir Beauchamp, bombards Alexandria, iii. 32
Shaftesbury, 7th Earl of, i. 25, 84;
his Agricultural Gangs Act, ii. 46;
and sweated labour, ii. 56;
and climbing boy scandals, ii. 59; iii. 86;
and cruelty to children, ii. 63;
and working men's wages, ii. 96;
religious zeal, ii. 118;
and work for women, ii. 246;
and vivisection, iii. 103;
and Public Worship Regulation Bill, 1874, iii. 157;
death, iii. 376
Shakespeare, William;
suggested statue of, i. 188, 190;
house purchased for the nation, i. 272;
_P.'s_ devotion to, ii. 266;
tercentenary celebrations, ii. 266;
cult in the 'sixties, ii. 282 _seq._;
Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, iii. 350;
"despised" by Mr. Shaw, iv. 279;
rivalry of Miss Corelli, iv. 280;
"Shacon and Bakespeare," _ill._, iv. 279;
author of Bacon's _Essays_, iv. 280
Shaw, G. B., iv. 129, 279;
and doctrine of self-expression, iv. 140;
plays, iv. 312, 313, 322, 323
Shaw, Norman, R.A., iii. 182
Shedden, Miss, ii. 250 _seq._
Sheffield, 4th Baron (Lyulph Stanley), and Housing Commission, 1884,
iii. 99
Shelley, P. B., _Cenci_ acted, iii. 352
Shepperson, Claude, A.R.A., iv. 136
Shepstone, Sir Theophilus, annexes Transvaal, iii. 18, 30
Sherman, General, ii. 22
Shop Hours Bill, 1887, iii. 90
Shopgirls' hardships, iii. 90; iv. 104, 168
Shopkeepers and monster shops, iii. 90 _seq._;
hardships, iii. 98
Shops, early closing, i. 38;
regulations affecting, iv. 118
Shorthouse, John, _John Inglesant_, iii. 176
Sibthorp, Colonel, M.P., i. 268 _ill._
Sims, Admiral W. S., and England, iv. 11
Singers, amateur, iv. 340
Sinn Fein movement, iv. 12
Slang, iii. 265;
among the clergy, iii. 276
Slavery, i. 255
Slums, iii. 98;
slumming, iv. 104, 107
Smalley, G. W., American journalist, iii. 246
Smith, Alexander, poet, ii. 268
Smith, George, of Coalville, iii. 86 _seq._
Smith, Goldwin, Professor, ii. 273
Smith, Gunboat, fight with Carpentier, iv. 99
Smith, Jem, boxer, iii. 290
Smith, Rt. Hon. W. H., M.P., iii. 21;
and Land Purchase Bill, 1891, iii. 65;
death, iii. 377
Smithfield, i. 147;
fish market opened, iii. 185 _note_
Smoking, i. 218;
Anti-Tobacco Society, i. 219;
by ladies, i. 244, 246 _ill._
Smyth, Dame Ethel, iv. 333
Snowden, Philip, M.P., iv. 130
Social conditions, i. 208-231; ii. 197-235; iii. 235-286; iv. 13,
228-256;
evils, i. 230; iii. 280;
reform, ii. 52;
changes, iv. 228;
vulgarity and publicity of Society, iv. 229;
Du Maurier as critic and satirist of the old _régime_, iv. 228, 229
Social Science Association, ii. 200, 251, 260
Socialism, iii. 75, 79, 82; iv. 107, 115, 128-30;
in Germany, iii. 19; iv. 78
Society, High, invasion of new plutocracy, iii. 235 _seq._;
poverty and decline of old nobility, iii. 235 _seq._, 242 _seq._;
journals, iii. 236, 242 seq.;
invades stage, iii. 241;
Society people as tradesmen and professionals, iii. 242 _seq._;
women in the 'eighties, iii. 248;
women and murder trials, iii. 248 _seq._;
women, craze for slumming, iii. 250;
pugilists _fêted_ by, iii. 250
Somerville, Mary, i. 215; ii. 256
_Song of the Shirt_, i. 11
Songs, popular, ii. 307; iii. 373; iv. 340
Sothern, Edward, actor, ii. 337 _seq._
Soudan, outbreak in 1888, iii. 56
"Souls," the, iv. 230, 232, 233
South Africa:
war of 1899-1902, iv. 6 _seq._;
railway between Natal and the Cape, iv. 20;
state of, in 1895, iv. 20
Spain, Isabella, Queen of, i. 187;
revolution of 1868, ii. 29;
restoration of monarchy, iii. 10
Spain, King Alfonso XIII, popularity, iv. 225, 226;
marriage to Princess Ena of Battenberg, iv. 225
Spanish-American war, iv. 8, 11, 30
Special constables, i. 55 ill.
_Spectator_, and American Civil War, ii. 68;
attacks _P._, iii. 29
Spencer, 5th Earl, ii. 158
Spencer, Herbert, iii. 155
Spielmann, M. H., _History of Punch_, i. 13
Spion Kop dispatches, iv. 39
Spiritualism, i. 226; ii. 46, 203 _seq._; iii. 252
Spithead, naval review, 1899, iii. 58
Spofforth, F. R., Australian cricketer, iii. 292, 294
Sport, i. 173;
battues condemned, i. 174-5, _ill._;
in school education, ii. 131;
and pastime, ii. 211, 339-49; iii. 287-303; iv. 345-60;
women begin to compete, ii. 238;
and unemployed, iv. 123;
athletic; Oxford _v._ Yale, iv. 346;
winter, in 1895, iv. 356
Spurgeon, Rev. C. H., i. 106; iii. 145, 168;
death, iii. 175
Stage, and Society, i. 228; ii. 235, 294 _seq._;
realism, ii. 293;
and education, iii. 144 _seq._
Stanford's railway map issued, ii. 154
Stanford, Sir Charles, iv. 333;
composes music for _Eumenides_, iii. 352;
conducts his _Revenge_, iii. 370;
and Royal College of Music, iii. 372
Stanhope, 4th Earl, i. 303
Stanhope, 5th Earl, ii. 157;
and revision of Prayer-book, ii. 170
Stanley, Lord, afterwards 15th Earl of Derby.
_See_ Derby.
Stanley, A. P., Dean of Westminster, ii. 101-2, 157;
made Dean, ii. 113:
religious liberalism, ii. 134;
and suggested memorial to Prince Imperial, iii. 24;
death, iii. 375
Stanley, H. M., explorer, ii. 217 _seq._; iii. 63
Staple Inn, proposed demolition, iii. 178
State Church threatened, ii. 120
Statues, Wellington's replaced at Hyde Park Corner, iii. 178;
and memorials, iv. 204-7
Stead, W. T., and national defence, iii. 71;
advocates British naval supremacy, iii. 204
Stephenson, George, i. 86;
and Brunel, iii. 199
Stevens, Alfred, sculptor, i. 294; ii. 313
Stevenson, R. L., iii. 317;
through _P.'s_ eyes, iii. 323, 325;
_Catriona_ reviewed with _Barabbas_, iv. 281;
_P.'s_ obituary verses and reply to W. E. Henley, _ibid._
Stott, Ralph, of Dover, invents flying machine, iii. 201
Stowe, Mrs. Beecher, ii. 20
Strap-hanging, iv. 198
Strathnairn, Baron (Sir Hugh Rose), ii. 8
Strauss, Eduard, visits England, iii. 369 _seq._
Strauss, Johann, i. 294
Strauss, Richard, iv. 332, 338;
_Elektra_, iv. 335;
_Salome_ and _Joseph_, iv. 336;
verses on, iv. 336, 337, 342
Street, G. E., R.A., builds the Law Courts, iii. 179
Strikes, iv. 110-11, 132, 134;
failure of, i. 60; ii. 58;
workmen _v._ butchers, ii. 76;
for higher wages, ii. 92;
dock strike of 1889, iii. 80 _seq._;
gas strike of 1889, iii. 81;
coal strike of 1890, iii. 83;
coal strike of 1892, iii. 84;
omnibus strike of 1891, iii. 84;
of telegraph clerks, iii. 93;
coal strike of 1912, iv. 134
Sturge, Joseph, reformer, i. 29
Submarines, possibilities, iii. 203 _seq._;
improvements in, iv. 181;
invention of, iv. 186-8
Suburbs, growth of, iii. 266 _seq._;
railways to, iv. 198
Suez Canal, ii. 19; iii. 4
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, iv. 305;
_Ivanhoe_, iii. 181, 362;
with Gilbert, iii. 356;
conducts his _Golden Legend_, iii. 370;
_Golden Legend_ and _Prodigal Son_, iii. 372;
memorial verses on, iv. 338.
_See also_ Gilbert, W. S.
Sumner, C. R., Bp. of Winchester, i. 45
Sumner, J. B., Archbp. of Canterbury, i. 93, 95
Surgeons, Army and Navy, disabilities of, i. 120.
_See also_ Doctors.
Sutherland, 2nd Duke of, i. 18, 202;
Duchess of, i. 255;
3rd Duke of, ii. 218
Sweated labour, i. 11, 17, 28; ii. 56 _seq._, 74; iii. 134;
of children, ii. 58 _seq._;
by Jews and others, iii. 94 _seq._
Swimming, for women, iii. 291;
Channel, iv. 355
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, ii. 269 _seq._; iii. 317;
patronizes "the Menken," ii. 289;
through _P.'s_ eyes, iii. 324;
criticized and parodied, iv. 275;
_P.'s_ final tribute to, _ibid._
Syncretics Society, the, i. 274
Syndicalism, attempt at, i. 39
Table-turning mania, i. 226
Taft, President, and England, iv. 75
Taglioni, Maria, i. 274
Taglioni overcoat, i. 265
Tagore, Rabindranath, cult of, iv. 291
Tait, Bp. of London, ii. 102, 106, 120;
(Archbp. of Canterbury) and Sabbatarianism, iii. 102;
death, iii. 320
Talfourd, Sir T. N., i. 233
Tariff Reform, iv. 51, 69, 116
Tattersall's. _See_ London
Taxi-cabs foreshadowed, i. 77
Tay Bridge disaster, iii. 163
Taylor, Miss Helen, stands for Camberwell, iii. 128
Taylor, Tom, editor of _P._, ii. 235;
death, iii. 328;
as playwright, iii. 343
Teck, Duke and Duchess of, iii. 223
Telegraph, electric, i. 72, 79; ii. 138;
inefficiency of, iii. 206
Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, iii. 3, 32
Telephones, introduction of, iii. 205
Temperance, _P.'s_ views on, i. 46;
French idea of British, ii. 212 _seq._; iii. 102 _seq._;
Budget of 1883, iii. 103;
licensing anomalies, _ibid._
Temple Bar, i. 149;
removed, iii. 177
Temple, Dr. (Bp. of London), ii. 101-2, 110;
(Archbp. of Canterbury) and Education Act of 1902, iv. 148
Temple, Sir Richard, iii. 144
Tenniel, Sir John, ii. 182; iii. 4, 12, 57;
"Dropping the Pilot" cartoon, iii. 61, 221; iv. 34;
knighthood, iv. 310;
public dinner to, _ibid._;
special Tenniel number, iv. 311;
illustrations to _Alice in Wonderland_, _ibid._
Tennyson, 1st Lord, i. 206;
_Charge of the Light Brigade_, i. 131; ii. 174, 268;
peerage, iii. 320;
_P._ and, iv. 274
Terriss, William, iv. 318
Territorial Army, iv. 13, 60;
efficiency of, in 1914, iv. 98
Terry, Ellen, ii. 292, 104; iii. 350;
jubilee, iv. 325 _ill._, 326
Terry, Kate, ii. 286
Tetrazzini, Mme., iv. 334
Thackeray, W. M., i. 173, 181;
leaves _P._, i. 112;
"The Pimlico Pavilion," i. 149;
on Dickens, i. 218;
his prophecy, ii. 184 _seq._;
criticizes _Eugene Aram_, iii. 143;
quoted, iii. 280, 283, 321;
death, ii. 273
Thames, River: Tunnel, i. 149;
state of, i. 151; ii. 148 _seq._; iii. 106;
steamboat service, i. 44; iv. 200;
embankments, ii. 152; iii. 179
Theatre in Russia, ii. 284 _seq._
Theatres:
stage and society, i. 228;
Act of 1843, i. 273;
performances in Passion Week, i. 275;
as schools for infants, iii. 354;
repertory, in provinces, iv. 312;
Independent Theatre, iv. 313.
_See also_ Drama
Theological romance, iii. 176
Theosophists, iii. 252 _seq._
Thiers, Louis Adolphe, French statesman and President, ii. 36; iii. 20
Thomas, J. H., Labour M.P., threatens railway strike, iv. 135
Thompson, Sir Henry, ii. 223;
and vegetarianism, iii. 209;
and cremation, iii. 275
Thomson, Dr., Archbp. of York, ii. 50, 120
Thornton, C. I., _P.'s_ tribute to, iv. 349
Thought-reading, iii. 252 _seq._
Tichborne case, the, ii. 206-11; iii. 9
Tillett, Mr. Ben, and L.C.C., iii. 197;
attacks Lord Mount-Edgcumbe, iv. 120
_Times, The_, newspaper, and _P._, i. 187; ii. 70, 76, 132, 134, 254,
263, 332 _seq._, 336, 345; iii. 19, 50;
controversy with Parnell, iii. 57;
and Mr. Balfour, iii. 65;
and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, iii. 66, 71, 92, 101;
centenary, iii. 327;
passes under Lord Northcliffe's financial control, iv. 298;
reduced to one penny, _ibid._
Tirpitz, Admiral, and German naval expansion, iv. 85
_Titanic_, loss of the, iv. 191
Titiens, Mlle., ii. 298, 300 _seq._, 303 _seq._
"Tom Brown." _See_ Hughes, Tom
"Tom Thumb, General," at Court, i. 187
Toole, J. L., actor, iii. 353; iv. 325
Tooth, Rev. A., of Hatcham, iii. 160
Top-hat, tyranny of, iii. 314 _seq._; iv. 257;
pros and cons, iv., 258, 259
Tower Bridge opened (1894), iv. 200
Townsend, F. H., _P._ artist, iv. 109, 154, 210
Trade depression after Boer war, iv. 46, 132
Trade Disputes Act of 1906, iv. 6, 58, 125-6
Trade unions, and foreign politics, ii. 42;
tyranny of, ii. 58, 77, 85 _seq._;
intimidation exercised by, ii. 86;
Trade Unions Act, ii. 96; iii. 74; iv. 119, 120, 122, 128, 132-4
Trafalgar Square, i. 147; ii. 163 _ill._;
criticism of, iii. 180
Tramways, drivers and conductors, iii. 93;
and railways, iii. 180;
and motor-'buses, iv. 196-8
Transvaal, annexed, iii. 18;
war with, iii. 29 _seq._;
obtains full autonomy, iv. 7 _seq._;
grant to, iv. 46;
Boers _v._ Uitlanders, 36 _seq._
Travellers, British, on the Continent, i. 222; ii. 211, 212;
iii. 268-70, 278-9; iv. 255-6
Treaties: draft, secret (France and Prussia in 1867), ii. 82;
San Stefano, iii. 3;
London, iv. 83-4;
Bukharest, iv. 84
Trebelli, Mme., ii. 301, 303
Tree, Sir Herbert, actor-manager, iii. 344, 353; iv. 317, 321, 322;
on the music-halls, iv. 330
_Trent_ case, the, ii. 3, 18, 19
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir George, iv. 4
Tricycles, appearance of, ii. 138; iii. 300
_Trilby_, _P._ on, iv. 284;
in Peckham, _ill._, iv. 285
Triple Alliance, established, iii. 54; iii. 59;
in 1907, iv. 62
"Trippers," cheap, iii. 104 _seq._
Trollope, Anthony, ii. 274; iii. 317, 320;
parodied, iii. 324
_Truth_, appearance of, iii. 327
Tryon, Admiral Sir George, and loss of the _Victoria_, iv. 191
Tubes introduced, iv. 194, 198
Tupper, Martin F., i. 234; ii. 181, 270 _seq._;
death, iii. 319
Turf, the, iv. 360
Turkey, relations with, iii. 14 _seq._;
buys Dreadnought from England, iv. 91;
relations with Greece, iv. 99.
_See also_ Russo-Turkish war
Turner, J. M. W., R.A., i. 295
Turnerelli, Tracy, and the "people's tribute," iii. 24
Turnpike, laws resented, i. 57;
trusts, end of, iv. 202
Tussaud's, Mme., i. 68, 106;
Chamber of Horrors condemned, i. 157
Twain, Mark, ii. 277, 280;
welcomed by _P._, in 1907, iv. 292;
farewell to, in 1910, iv. 293
Tweedmouth, 2nd Baron, and German menace, iv. 10;
withdraws from Admiralty, iv. 63
"Two Nations, The," i. _frontispiece_, 27
Type-writer, ii. 143 _seq._
Typhus, visitation of, i. 152
Uganda annexed, iv. 16
Ulster, and Home Rule, iv. 13;
crisis in, iv. 80, 85-6, 91, 92, 94-9, 101, 135
"Ulster," the, ii. 338
Undergraduates, costume, i. 269 _ill._;
high cost of living, ii. 134 _seq._
Underground railways, ii. 136, 154; iv. 194, 198, 200
Underpaid: governesses, iii. 273;
women workers, iv. 105
Unemployment:
riots, iii. 76, 78;
unemployed and unemployables, iii. 79; iv. 111-2, 119, 123;
insurance, iv. 133;
in the upper class, iv. 246
Uniforms, military:
protective colouring suggested, i. 122;
vagaries of, i. 269, 270; iii. 316
United Kingdom Alliance, i. 105
United States of America:
friction with, i. 134;
relief sent from, to Lancashire in 1863, ii. 69;
centenary of, iii. 48;
relations with, iv. 22 _seq._ 25, 75, 98
Universities:
_P.'s_ anti-academic bias, i. 87, 233;
Irish University Bill, ii. 39;
Universities Commission of 1872, ii. 132 _seq._;
Universities Act of 1877, ii. 133;
complaints of over-athleticism and expense, ii. 134;
women at, ii. 260 _seq._;
degrees for women, iii. 117;
London University and women, iii. 119;
education at, iii. 151 _seq._;
teaching of Greek, iii. 154 _seq._;
commerce at, iv. 155
Urquhart, David, i. 313
Vaccination Bill of 1898, iv. 119
_Vanguard_, loss of the, iii. 9
Vatican Decrees, iii. 158 _seq._
Vaticanism, ii. 101, 118
Vaughan, Father Bernard, iv. 250
Vaughan, Kate, actress, iii. 354
Vauxhall Gardens, i. 155
Vegetarianism, i. 240; iii. 209
Venetia annexed to Italy, ii. 26
Venezuela, dispute with, iv. 11, 22, 25
Verdi, Giuseppe, i. 277; ii. 301, 305, 297 _seq._;
his _Otello_ performed, iii. 356, 359;
_P._ and his later operas, iv. 332
Verne, Jules, iv. 186, 187
Verrey's Café, i. 217
Viardot-Garcia, Pauline, i. 280
Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy, ii. 10, 17, 19, 196
Victor Emmanuel III visits England, iii. 233
_Victoria_, loss of the, iv. 191
Victoria, Princess Royal, betrothed, i. 198
Victoria, Queen, i. 91;
reviews wounded soldiers, i. 130;
V.C. instituted, i. 136;
opens Royal Exchange, i. 149;
preference for foreign talent, i. 149, 190;
"bed-chamber" controversy, i. 165;
marriage, i. 166;
birth of Prince of Wales, i. 168;
as Mother Hubbard, i. 169 _ill._;
attack on, i. 186;
as Calypso, i. 191 _ill._;
visits Ireland, i. 196;
surname of Windsor suggested, _ibid._;
as Red Riding Hood, i. 307 _ill._;
as Queen Canute, i. 309 _ill._;
as Queen Hermione, ii. _front._;
speech, 1860, ii. 16, 55;
and Irish Church Bill, ii. 115 _ill._;
as Queen of India, _ill._, ii. 173, 174 _seq._, 179 _seq._,
191 _seq._;
letter to Mayor of Birmingham, ii. 245;
Empress of India, iii. 4, 12, 215 _seq._;
Golden Jubilee, iii. 6, 48, 226 _seq._;
in seclusion, iii. 219 _seq._;
attempt on her life, iii. 221;
and Royal grants, iii. 232;
Diamond Jubilee, iv. 27, 219-20;
80th birthday, iv. 34;
death, iv. 42, 44;
Memorial, iv. 201, 207;
last years of reign, iv. 215
Victoria Theatre, ii. 285
Victorian age closes, iv. 3 _seq._
Villafranca, Peace of, ii. 12
Vivisection, iii. 103
Vokes family and pantomime, iii. 354
Voluntary schools, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's attitude to, iii. 57
Volunteers, ii. 13
Wages, i. 11, 17, 19, 33, 37, 72;
and prices, iii. 104; iv. 105, 113, 119, 120
"Waggawock, The," ii. 209
Wagner, Johanna, i. 285
Wagner, Richard, i. 285; ii. 298, 300 _seq._, 307;
at Albert Hall, iii. 356, 357;
death, iii. 358, 361;
_P._ and, iv. 332
Wales, Albert Edward, P. of (King Edward VII), i. 8, 168;
visits Canada, ii. 16;
visits India, iii. 215 _seq._
Wales, Edward, P. of, iv. 216, 227
Wales, George, P. of (King George V), visits Ireland and Berlin,
iii. 225
Walker, Frederick, A.R.A., ii. 269, 317
Walker, Mary, Dr., ii. 252; iii. 305
Walker, Miss, female Chartist, i. 249 _ill._
Walpole, Rt. Hon. Spencer H, i. 45; ii. 80, 82
Waltz, the, i. 209, 212; ii. 240; iii. 369, 370, 371 _ill._; iv. 235,
236, 237 _ill._
Ward, Artemus (C. F. Browne), ii. 277 _seq._
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, _Robert Elsmere_, iii. 176, 317, 322
Ward, Colonel John, C.B., D.S.O., M.P., iv. 135
Warner, Capt., inventor, i. 74; ii. 139
Warren, Sir Charles, and the police force, iii. 101;
in Boer war, iv. 39
Warren, Samuel, castigated by _P._, i. 234; ii. 242
Waterford, 3rd Marquess of, i. 202 _ill._
Watkin, Sir Edward, and Channel Tunnel, iii. 204
Watts, G. F., R.A., iii. 255, 337;
his "Hope," iii. 338;
_P.'s_ verses on, iv. 304
Watts, Dr. Isaac, ii. 210
Webb, Sir Aston, R.A., iv. 212
Wellington College, iii. 149
Wellington, 1st Duke of:
on the poor, i. 6;
criticized, i. 18;
appoints special constables, i. 54;
duel with Lord Winchilsea, i. 114, 115 _ill._;
letter to _Times_, i. 117;
on ignorance in the Army, i. 120;
statues to, i. 149;
Alfred Stevens's monument to, i. 294;
as courtier to Queen Canute, i. 309 _ill._
Wellington Memorial competition, ii. 313
Wells, H. G., iv. 129, 286;
_Ann Veronica_ reviewed, iv. 289
Welsh Disestablishment Bill, iv. 18, 86, 92, 98
Welsh language, ii. 220
Wemyss, 8th Earl of, iii. 37
Westbury, 1st Lord, death, ii. 118
Westminster Abbey, burials in, iv. 207
Westminster Aquarium, criticized, iii. 100, 103, 287;
closed, iv. 202-3
Westminster Bridge, i. 148
Westminster Cathedral consecrated, iv. 201
Westminster, 1st Duke of, starts cheap eating-houses, iii. 185
Westminster, 2nd Duke of, on the "national disaster" of 1912, iv. 347
Whalley, G. H., M.P., ii. 39 _ill._, 210, 272; iii. 9;
cartooned, iii. 21
Whiskers, ambrosial, i. 268; iii. 316;
no longer in fashion, iv. 264
Whistler, J. McNeill, ii. 313, 316, 329;
and Ruskin, iii. 331;
satirized by _P._, iii. 337, 341 _seq._
Whitechapel, crime wave in, iii. 101
Whitman, Walt, i. 234; ii. 270;
death, iii. 320
Whymper, Edward, mountaineer, iii. 291
_Wicked World, The_, ii. 291
Widdicomb, John E., the ringmaster of Astley's Circus, i. 155
Wilberforce, Canon Basil, iii. 163
Wilberforce, Samuel, Bp. of Oxford, i. 95;
death, ii. 118;
biography, iii. 252
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, Mrs., ii. 289; iv. 287, 292
Wilde, Oscar, and the æsthetic movement, iii. 257 _seq._, 325, 329, 337
Wilhelm, ex-Crown Prince of Germany, visits India, iv. 75
Wilhelm I, Emperor of Germany, ii. 35 _ill._, 195 _seq._;
death, iii. 51, 225
Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, ii. 25; iii. 8, 51;
utterance of, iii. 52;
relations with Bismarck, iii. 54;
visits England, iii. 57 _seq._;
aggressive attitude, iii. 59, 61;
dismisses Bismarck, iii. 61;
and race of armaments, iii. 71;
visits England, 1891, iii. 232 _seq._;
through _P.'s_ eyes, iv. 11;
telegram to Krüger, iv. 20, 26 _seq._;
and Professor Quidde, iv. 26;
_lèse-majesté_ campaign, iv. 26, 32, 48;
distrusted in England, iv. 56;
and naval retrenchment, iv. 63;
dispute with his Chancellor, iv. 64;
fiftieth birthday, iv. 65, 80;
congratulates Roumania, iv. 83
William of Wied, Prince, chosen sovereign of Albania, iv. 84
Willis's Rooms, i. 276
Wilson, Dr., on Scott's Antarctic expedition, iv. 190
Wilson, Sir Erasmus, and Cleopatra's Needle, ii. 153
Wilson, President Woodrow, iv. 143
Wimbledon Volunteer camp removed by order, iii. 68 _seq._
Winchilsea, 10th Earl of, duel with Duke of Wellington, i. 114
Winchilsea, 11th Earl of, bellicosity as Lord Maidstone, i. 115
Wireless telegraphy, iv. 181, 186
Wiseman, Cardinal, issues pastoral, i. 99;
attacked by _P._ 99-100, 101 _ill._;
original of "Bishop Blougram," i. 103;
retorts on _P._, _ibid._;
life of, reviewed by _P._, iv. 158, 162
Wolseley, Sir Garnet (1st Viscount Wolseley), ii. 38; iii. 3;
Tel-el-Kebir, iii. 32, 54, 71, 217;
controversy with Dr. W. H. Russell, iii. 111;
opposes Channel Tunnel, iii. 204;
on duration of Boer war, iv. 38
Women, assaults on, i. 19, 252;
and emigration, i. 58, 255; iii. 128;
accomplishments of, i. 213, 214;
masculinity of, i. 244;
and smoking, i. 244, 246; iii. 131;
the "model fast lady," i. 245-7;
in medicine, i. 250;
"Bloomerism," _ibid._; ii. 236-65;
and toy-dogs, ii. 241;
as artists, i. 252; ii. 243;
musicians, _ibid._;
gymnasts, ii. 244 _seq._;
new occupations, ii. 246;
strong-minded, ii. 246 _seq._;
and the professions, i. 249 _seq._; ii. 247, 258 _seq._;
iii. 124 _seq._;
and marriage, ii. 262, 263;
workers, iii. 88 _seq._, 133 _seq._;
status of, iii. 114-136;
higher education of, i. 248; ii. 260; iii. 116 _seq._;
and cookery, iii. 117;
and physical culture, iii. 118;
women's associations, iii. 124 _seq._;
as jurors, iii. 129;
clubs for, iii. 130; iv. 169, 172;
in sports and pastime, iii. 131 _seq._, 294; iv. 163, 167, 171;
the new, iv. 165-8;
chauffeurs, iv. 168;
University students, iv. 167, 169, 170;
aviators, iv. 178
Women's Rights movement, i. 249, 252, 257; ii. 98, 236, 251 _seq._;
iii. 126 _seq._, 128;
as canvassers, iii. 129;
militant suffragism, iv. 98, 163, 168, 171, 174, 178-80;
in municipal office, iv. 168;
cleavage in Asquith's Cabinet over, iv. 178-9
Wood, Sir Henry Wood, i. 289
Wood, General Leonard, report on U.S.A. army, iv. 91
Workhouse scandals, i. 8, 20, 21; ii. 48 _seq._; iii. 96; iv. 127
Working men, condition of, i. 3-60; ii. 58, 76-7;
sympathy with the North in American war, ii. 71;
as candidates for Parliament, ii. 86 _seq._;
high wages, ii. 89, 92 _seq._;
improvidence of, iv. 113;
aversion from work, iv. 243
Working women's colleges, ii. 56
Workmen's Compensation Act, iv. 127
Wright, brothers (Orville and Wilbur), inventors and pioneer aviators,
iv. 184
Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George, M.P., and Irish Land Purchase Act, iv. 4, 49;
death, iv. 58
X-rays discovered, iv. 181, 189
Yankees, ii. 71
Yates, Edmund, of the _World_, iii. 170
_Yellow Book_, the, iv. 230, 283
Yerkes, Charles Tyson, organizes London electrical railways, iv. 198
York, Dr. Thomson, Archbp. of, ii. 50, 120
York, Duke of, marriage, iv. 215
York, Duke and Duchess of, visit Ireland, iv. 220;
visit Australia in 1901, iv. 222
"Young England" party, _P.'s_ hostility to, i. 24;
supports Bill for regulation of factory labour, i. 25;
and reform of the Church, i. 94;
white waistcoats, emblem of, i. 268
"Young Ireland" party, i. 196
Young men in the 'eighties and 'nineties, iii. 264
Young, poet, _P._ on, ii. 272
Zabern incident, iv. 85, 91
Zæo, acrobat, iii. 287; iv. 203
Zancigs, the, iii. 253
Zanzibar, Bp. of, and Kikuyu controversy, iv. 160
Zazel, acrobat, iii. 23, 100, 287, iv. 203
Zeppelins, trial trips of, iv. 183
Zola, Emile, iii. 353; iv. 28
Zulu war, iii. 23 _seq._, 111
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