The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. IV (of IV).--1892-1914, by Charles L. Graves.

M^r.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

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[Pg 4] 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.

From 1906 onwards we are confronted by the meteoric and Protean personalities of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston [Pg 6]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.

Looking back, in the light of fuller knowledge, on the South African war of 1899-1902, we cannot fail to recognize[Pg 7] 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[Pg 8] 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[Pg 10] 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.

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[Pg 11] 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[Pg 12] friendly but not uncritical approval to the Territorial Army scheme.

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[Pg 13] 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.

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,

[Pg 15]

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,"[Pg 16] 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[Pg 17] until 1897, though it was mentioned publicly by M. Ribot in 1895.

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.

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[Pg 19] "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[Pg 20] 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.

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:—

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?"—

"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.

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:—

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[Pg 24] 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.

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[Pg 25] dramatic interventions, but his official career, like that of his contemporary at Eton, Lord Randolph Churchill, closed before he was fifty.

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[Pg 26] 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:—

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[Pg 28] 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[Pg 30] 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.

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[Pg 31] that Charles Eliot Norton openly denounced the mixture of hypocrisy and thoughtlessness with which his countrymen had plunged into it.

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[Pg 32] 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.

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[Pg 33] 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"[Pg 34] 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[Pg 35] 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.

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:—

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.

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.

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[Pg 38] 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[Pg 39] 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:—

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[Pg 40] 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."

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[Pg 42] 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.

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 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.

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[Pg 45] 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[Pg 46] 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."

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:—

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[Pg 49] 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."

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":—

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[Pg 51] 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,[Pg 52] 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":—

Nichol, Nichol, little Czar,

How I wonder where you are!

You who thought it best to fly,

Being so afraid to die.

[Pg 54]

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!

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.

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.

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,[Pg 58] 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.

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[Pg 60] 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:—

Further satire is expended in August of the same year on "A Skeleton Army; or, The Charge of the Very Light Brigade":—

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[Pg 62] 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[Pg 63] 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."

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:—

[Pg 64]

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."

The Kaiser's fiftieth birthday is commemorated in a "Soliloquy in Berlin," in which the Emperor boasts of having[Pg 65] 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.

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[Pg 66] 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.

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.[Pg 67] 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.

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[Pg 69] 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,

[Pg 70]

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!

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."

Perhaps the shrewdest comment on international politics made by Punch in this year is to be found in his "Charivaria" column for November 9:—

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.

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.

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[Pg 77] 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,[Pg 78] 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:—

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.'"

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[Pg 80] "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!"

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[Pg 82] 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[Pg 83] 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."

The attitude of the Concert of Powers over the question of Adrianople is indicated in the cartoon in which Sir Edward[Pg 84] 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.

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[Pg 85] 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[Pg 86] 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.

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[Pg 88] 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]

"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.

A propos of the theft of the "Mona Lisa" portrait from the Louvre, Punch portrayed Mr. Asquith as "Il Giocondo" with[Pg 90] 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.

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[Pg 91] 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[Pg 92] 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:—

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:—

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.

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[Pg 94] 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":—

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:—

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.

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[Pg 97] 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[Pg 98] 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.

With the opening of July the London season was in full fling; the pleasure-hunt had never been so unbridled; midsummer[Pg 99] 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[Pg 100] British and Irish parties had been arranged to meet at Buckingham Palace.

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[Pg 101] 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[Pg 102] 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:—

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[Pg 104] 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.

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:—

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[Pg 106] 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 ¾d. 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.

At the same time the Philistine attitude of the East End matron is not overlooked in Phil May's picture. Much depended on[Pg 107] 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:—

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.

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:—

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[Pg 112] 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.

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[Pg 113] 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":—

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!

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[Pg 114] 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[Pg 115] 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[Pg 116] he reads the announcement in a shop-window: "Cheap! Ha! Ha! Why, in my time they threw them at us."

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"[Pg 118] 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."

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[Pg 119] 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"[Pg 120] (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.

[Pg 121]

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.

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:—

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:—

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."

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[Pg 124] in the abortive movement to introduce knee-breeches for evening wear.

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.

[Pg 125]

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[Pg 126] 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.

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[Pg 127] 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[Pg 128] 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.

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":—

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

[Pg 130]

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."

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[Pg 132] 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[Pg 133] 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.

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.[Pg 134] 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."

Mr. John Burns's political evolution, since the days when[Pg 135] 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.

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[Pg 139] 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."

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[Pg 140] 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:—

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.

[Pg 141]

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.

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[Pg 142] 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."

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[Pg 143] 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:—

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[Pg 145] 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!

[Pg 146]

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?"

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.

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[Pg 149] 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.

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[Pg 150] 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.

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:—

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,"[Pg 151] 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);

[Pg 152]

And I for one, although exposed so crushingly,

Still mean to draw my salary unblushingly—

That of a third-rate clerk.

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[Pg 153] plan to an absurdity by an imaginative account of its working.

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[Pg 154] 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,[Pg 155] and natives with a bad accent who could. And in pre-war days they often decided in favour of the latter.

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:—

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.

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[Pg 158] 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:—

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.

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."

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.

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[Pg 164] 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.

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[Pg 165] the nursery," Punch quoted back at her "Ouida's" statement that "the New Woman was an unmitigated bore," and went on:—

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":—

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.

[Pg 166]

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!

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[Pg 167] 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[Pg 168] 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[Pg 169] 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.

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.

[Pg 170]

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;

[Pg 171]

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.

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[Pg 172] "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:—

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:—

"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[Pg 174] 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.

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.

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.

[Pg 176]

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!

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.

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.

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":—

I mote.
Thou stokest.
He looks out for the police.
We run into a lamp-post.
Ye knock a man over.
They pay damages.

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[Pg 184] 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[Pg 186] 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.

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.

"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."

[Pg 187]

("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[Pg 188] 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:—

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[Pg 189] raged over the efficiency of the "Belleville" tubular boilers, but Punch contented himself with merely registering the conflicting views of the experts.

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[Pg 190] 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!"

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[Pg 191] 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[Pg 192] 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."

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[Pg 193] 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

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,"[Pg 195] 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,"[Pg 196] 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.

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[Pg 197] 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[Pg 198] 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.

Six years later Punch describes "rack-hanging" on the suburban lines of the Great Eastern as one stage worse than[Pg 200] "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.

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."

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[Pg 201] 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[Pg 202] 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?

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[Pg 203] 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:—

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.

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[Pg 205] 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:—

("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."

In 1902 the fall of the Campanile of St. Mark's at Venice[Pg 207] 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.

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,[Pg 208] 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!

[Pg 209]

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)":—

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.

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!

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!

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?

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!

"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.

In 1912 the London Museum was opened at Kensington Palace, and Punch, in a commemorative cartoon, showed[Pg 212] 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.

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[Pg 216] 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.

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.

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,[Pg 218] 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[Pg 219] Women of England—begging them to discontinue the wearing of egret plumes on this and every other occasion.

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[Pg 220] 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.

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.

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[Pg 223] 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[Pg 224] 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."

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[Pg 225] 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[Pg 226] 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.

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.

[Pg 229]

They live, his butts, cold-hearted, shallow-brained.

In his own chosen walk Du Maurier reigned

Supreme, without a peer.

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.[Pg 230] 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.

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[Pg 233] 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[Pg 234] 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[Pg 235] mayor that the risk of injury was rather greater in the ballroom than in the football field:—

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[Pg 236] 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:—

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;

[Pg 238]

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.

[Pg 239]

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.

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.

[Pg 240]

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.

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[Pg 242] Press, Punch made it clear that the process of emancipation was proceeding apace:—

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[Pg 243] 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:—

Aversion from work was already abroad. A fond parent is shown in this year commenting on the recalcitrant attitude of[Pg 244] 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."

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[Pg 245] 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."

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[Pg 246] "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.

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[Pg 248] 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."

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[Pg 249] 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":—

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[Pg 250] 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.

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.

[Pg 251]

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."

Though manners were in a state of flux, etiquette still[Pg 252] 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,[Pg 253] 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:—

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[Pg 254] 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[Pg 255] 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.

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[Pg 256] 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[Pg 258] 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:—

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[Pg 260] 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.

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 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,[Pg 263] 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.

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.

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[Pg 265] 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.

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:—

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!

Du Maurier, in a picture which serves as a pendant to one which appeared in November, 1857, contrasts the Misses[Pg 266] 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[Pg 267] though she owns that she had adopted them not to ride a bicycle, but because she had got a sewing machine.

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[Pg 268] 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[Pg 269] the rigours of the climate, a trait which is faithfully dealt with in Punch's verses on the "Pneumonia Blouse."

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;

[Pg 271]

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.'"

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[Pg 272] 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.

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[Pg 273] 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."

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.

[Pg 276]

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;

[Pg 277]

"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.

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[Pg 278] 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.

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[Pg 280] 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:—

Punch's "Essay" is not without relevance in its bearing on the recent "invention" of that highly "talented lady" Miss Clemence Dane.

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[Pg 281] 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:—

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[Pg 284] 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":—

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;[Pg 285] 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!

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;

[Pg 287]

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.

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[Pg 288] 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.

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[Pg 289] 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:—

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."

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.

[Pg 291]

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."

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[Pg 292] 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.

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—

[Pg 293]

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."

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.

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:—

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:—

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:—

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.[Pg 298] 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:—

The Times passed under the financial control of Lord Northcliffe at the beginning of 1908, and in the spring of 1914,[Pg 299] "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."

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:—

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!

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[Pg 304] 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.

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.

[Pg 305]

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.

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[Pg 306] 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[Pg 307] the same lines. But Punch, being nearly twice as old as Mr. Galsworthy, had spent a good part of his life amid these surroundings.

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:—

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":—

Mr. Marcellus Thom's "Sardine Fishers in the Adriatic," executed in "creosoted truffle stick," is a masterpiece of "suppressed but dignified antinomianism":—

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[Pg 310] 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.

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[Pg 311] 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[Pg 312] 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."

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[Pg 313] 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.

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[Pg 314] time. These activities did not always commend themselves to Punch, but at least he did not ignore them.

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[Pg 315] 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.

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[Pg 316] 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.

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[Pg 317] 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.

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:—

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[Pg 319] 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:—

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:—

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[Pg 321] 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.

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[Pg 322] 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."

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[Pg 323] 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[Pg 324] 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."

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.

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[Pg 325] 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.

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:—

Happily there were antidotes to the plague of Biblical Bacchanals; none better than that supplied for several seasons[Pg 327] 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,

[Pg 328]

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."

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[Pg 330] 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:—

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.

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 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[Pg 332] 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.

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—[Pg 333] 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[Pg 334] 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[Pg 335] 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:—

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?

[Pg 336]

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.

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[Pg 337] 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:—

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.

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[Pg 340] 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? 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."

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[Pg 341] 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.

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[Pg 342] 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.

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

[Pg 344]

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,[Pg 346] "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!

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.

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:—

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:—

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:—

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:—

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."

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[Pg 352] 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.

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[Pg 354] 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."

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[Pg 355] 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[Pg 356] 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.

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[Pg 357] 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."

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[Pg 359] 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."

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,

[Pg 360]

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.

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.;
[Pg 362]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.
[Pg 363]
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
[Pg 364]
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
[Pg 365]
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;
[Pg 366]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
[Pg 367]
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
[Pg 368]
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
[Pg 369]
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
[Pg 370]
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
[Pg 371]
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
[Pg 372]
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
[Pg 373]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;
[Pg 374]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
[Pg 375]
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
[Pg 376]
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.;
[Pg 377]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
[Pg 378]
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
[Pg 379]
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
[Pg 380]
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.
[Pg 381]
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
[Pg 382]
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
[Pg 383]
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
[Pg 384]
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
[Pg 385]
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.;
[Pg 386]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.
[Pg 387]
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
[Pg 388]
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
[Pg 389]
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
[Pg 390]
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
[Pg 391]
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
[Pg 392]
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
[Pg 393]
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
[Pg 394]
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
[Pg 395]
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;
[Pg 396]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
[Pg 397]
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
[Pg 398]
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
[Pg 399]
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
[Pg 400]
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
[Pg 401]
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
[Pg 402]

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
[Pg 403]
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
[Pg 404]
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;
[Pg 405]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
[Pg 406]

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
[Pg 407]
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
[Pg 408]
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;
[Pg 409]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

[Pg 410]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
[Pg 411]
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
[Pg 412]
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.;
[Pg 413]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:
[Pg 414]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.
[Pg 415]
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;
[Pg 416]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
[Pg 417]
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
[Pg 418]
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
[Pg 419]

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
[Pg 420]

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
[Pg 421]
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

[Pg 422]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
[Pg 423]
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
[Pg 424]
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

	PAGE
High Politics	3
Capital and Labour	103
Education and the Churches	136
The Advance of Women	163
Inventions Discoveries Novelties	181
Changing London	194


Portrait of Miss Guldheimer J. Sargent, R.A.	The Young Squire's Wedding H. H. La Thangue, A.R.A.


The picture of a boxer as published fifty years ago.	And the picture of a boxer as published to-day.


AGAINST THE WIND	WITH THE WIND

Mr. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND

M^r. PUNCH'S HISTORY
OF MODERN ENGLAND