Act i, scene 5, _Mr. Punch's edition_.

]

Our relations with the United States were bettered at the opening of 1897 by the signing of the Arbitration Treaty adjusting the Venezuelan question. In Europe events did not conduce to diminish our unpopularity. It was the year of the brief Greco-Turkish war, which revived old divisions of opinion at home. _Punch_ was no lover of the Turk; he realized the difficulties of King George, whom he depicted as Hamlet at Athens, recognizing (like Lord Rosebery) that the "time was out of joint" and deploring "the cursed spite that he was ever born to set it right"; but he supported Lord Salisbury in severely rebuking the hundred M.P.'s who had sent the King a message of encouragement. The verses, modelled on Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade," disparaged the message as mere gaseous talk, which did not mean business, and was bound to end in smoke. Criticism of the Kaiser becomes more animated than moderate; the frequent prosecutions for _lèse-majesté_, and the famous pamphlet, in which Professor Quidde of Munich ingeniously satirized the Kaiser's megalomania in an historical essay on the aberrations of Caligula, inspire a caustic open letter to Wilhelm II, the gist of which is that, though old enough to know better, he was still the victim of the capricious extravagance of youth:--

Formerly I imagined that throughout Germany, and from time to time in Russia, Austria, or in Italy, an imperial but soaringly human boy was lifting his glass and crying, "Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!" amid the clatter of swords and the admiring shouts of a profusely-decorated soldiery. Now I know that a stout gentleman is doing these things, and reducing his hearers to an abyss of melancholy at his dismal failure in dignity. A boy who played fantastic tricks with the telegraph-wires incurred but a mild censure. What shall be said of a middle-aged and pompous party whose pleasure it is to play practical jokes that set two nations by the ears?

[Sidenote: _The "Raid" and its Aftermath_]

Yours is a great inheritance, greatly won by heroic deeds. Your people are by nature the mildest and most loyal, and by tradition and education the most thoughtful, in Europe. But mild and loyal as they are their minds must rise in revolt against a sovereign who reproduces in the crudest form the stale theories of divine right and arbitrary government, whose one notion of administration is to increase his stupendous military forces by taxation while diminishing the number of his reasonable critics by imprisonment. You have travelled, cocked hat in hand, to capital after capital, you have dismissed Bismarck, you have made yourself into the tin god of a great monarchy, you have shouted, reviewed, toasted, speechified, you have donned a thousand different uniforms, you have dabbled in the drama, you have been assisted in the design of allegorical cartoons, you have composed hymns to Ægir, and Heaven knows how many others--and to-day the result of all your restless and misdirected energies is that you have added not only to your army but also to the foreign ill-wishers of your country and to her internal distractions. And at this moment, in spite of the millions of men and money that go to form her army, Germany is weaker than she has been at any moment since the Empire was proclaimed at Versailles. This feat, Sir, you have accomplished, and such credit as attaches to it is yours alone. Where and how do you propose to end?

In lighter vein but with equal disrespect _Punch_ satirizes the instructions to Prince Henry on starting with the naval expedition to Kiao-Chow. In particular _Punch_ dwells, not unfairly, on the Kaiser's insistence on the sanctity of his mission. It was to be a Holy war:--

To preach abroad in each distinct locality The gospel of my hallowed personality.

Another was added to the long list of Indian Frontier wars in the Tirah campaign. _Punch_ did well to recognize the loyalty of native officers, N.C.O.s and men, while saluting the achievements of the Gordon Highlanders in his verses to their Commander, Colonel Mathias. The men were "doing splendidly," but as Colonel _Punch_ says in one cartoon, "Yes, they always do; but is this 'forward policy' worth all this?" And a similar misgiving is revealed in an article implying that so-called "peaceful missions" to barbarian kings were too often closely followed up by punitive expeditions. The "repercussions" of the Jameson Raid were not overlooked. _Punch_ made merry over President Krüger's famous claim for "moral and intellectual damages"; but his criticisms are not confined to the Boers. The proceedings of the South African Committee of Inquiry prompted a parallel between Warren Hastings and Cecil Rhodes, in which the Indian proconsul remarks to the new Empire-builder: "_I_ succeeded and was impeached; you fail--and are called as a witness."

Of the second or Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, the last great State pageant of her reign, one may say that it was more than a great act of veneration and loyalty; it was a celebration of Imperial expansion and solidarity which formed a reassuring interlude on the eve of events that were destined to test that solidarity to the utmost. For 1898 was the year of Fashoda, of the conflict over the "open door" in China, and of the Spanish-American war. I put Fashoda first, because the incident came perilously near embroiling us in war with France. It was not an isolated expression of French resentment, since the general attitude of British public opinion over the Dreyfus affair had greatly inflamed Anglophobia in France. _Punch_, like the majority of Englishmen, was strongly Dreyfusard. Early in the year he published his cartoon, based on Holman Hunt's picture, in which Zola figures as the "Dreyfus Scapegoat"--a reference to the famous "J'accuse" article--and a similar spirit is shown in the "Dreyfus Dictionary," in which strong hostility is shown to all the leading actors on the anti-Dreyfus side. On a large and sincerely patriotic section of the French public, exasperated by what they considered to be a gratuitous interference in a domestic affair, _Punch's_ comments on the occupation of Fashoda in the Sudan by Colonel Marchand operated like vitriol on a raw wound. They certainly were not flattering to one, who if not a very discreet was a very gallant soldier. Beginning with a farcical burlesque of the stealthy invasion of the French, they go on from ridicule to contempt. "Marchez, Marchand," says John Bull to the Colonel, ironically congratulating him on having had a "nice little scientific trip." The last straw was the cartoon in which John Bull says: "Go away, go away," to a French organ-grinder with a little monkey in uniform perched on his instrument, which is labelled Fashoda. The organ-grinder says, "Eh? What you give me if I go?" and John Bull retorts: "I'll give you something if you _don't_." A "furious Gaul" broke _Mr. Punch's_ windows, and now we can understand and forgive the retaliation. It may have been an added sting to say, as _Punch_ did on the best authority, that Colonel Marchand had been really saved from the Dervishes by Kitchener's success at Omdurman. Anyhow, it was fortunate that Lord Kitchener, who had served with the French in 1870 in Chanzy's army, was in charge of the negotiations with Colonel Marchand on the spot. The French Government did not give way until six weeks had passed, during which Irish members had avowed their sympathy with France, and _Punch_ addressed her with serious warnings and even bellicose threats. For the peaceful adjustment of what looked like a _casus belli_, we certainly owe more to Lord Kitchener than to _Punch_. The battle of Omdurman, fought on September 2, 1898, was the culminating point of a carefully planned campaign which had lasted more than two years, and was duly celebrated in _Punch's_ cartoon of the re-occupation of Khartum, with the statue of Gordon, avenged after thirteen years, in the background. Lord Kitchener lost no time in issuing his appeal for funds to erect the Gordon Memorial College in Khartum, to which _Punch_ dedicated his cartoon of "Dreaming True." The agreement delimiting the respective spheres of England and France in North Africa was not signed till January 19, 1899, but Punch had foreshadowed the issue in his cartoon of John Bull as a "Fixture" in Egypt, his features replacing the battered countenance of the Sphinx.

It cannot be said that _Punch_ was any more conciliatory to the United States over the Spanish-American war than he had been to France over Fashoda. He is sympathetic to the young King of Spain, shown as a small boy on the throne threatened by Bellona and Revolution. Both in prose and verse he is distinctly hostile to the U.S.A., ironically crediting them with no desire to annex Cuba, but talking almost in the same breath of "filibustering" and "spread-eagling." And when Cuba was acquired _Punch_ professes to regard it as anything but an unmixed blessing. Spain is shown saying to Uncle Sam: "Well, you wanted him! You've got him! And I wish you joy of him!"--Cuba being represented as an ill-conditioned little coloured boy. _Punch's_ reading of the Treaty of Peace was that Uncle Sam would agree to anything if Spain would take Cuba back; while in another cartoon European resentment of American intrusion into European politics is typified by a very "sniffy" Europa asking Uncle Sam if he is "any relation of the late Colonel Monroe." All this did not make for good blood, or the promotion of that friendly understanding applauded in _Punch's_ letter to Mr. Howells, but it may be pleaded in extenuation that some of the sanest and wisest and noblest Americans were not at all happy about the Spanish war, and that Charles Eliot Norton openly denounced the mixture of hypocrisy and thoughtlessness with which his countrymen had plunged into it.

[Sidenote: _The "Open Door" in China_]

The conflicting commercial interests of various Powers in China are also the subject of a good deal of frank comment at the expense of Russia and Germany. In one cartoon the British Lion is shown with a barrow-load of goods denied entrance by the Bear at the "free port" of Talienwan. In another, the "Open Door" is reduced to a farce, being occupied by the Bear armed to the teeth and a German entrenched in tariffs. A third, entitled "The Sentinels," is based on the view that the occupation of Port Arthur left us no alternative but to occupy Wei-hai-wei in order to restore the equilibrium upset by Russia. The powerlessness of the young Emperor, who had proposed a scheme of reforms, is clearly indicated in the dialogue in which the "Son of Heaven" discusses his Aunt--the formidable Dowager-Empress. _Punch_ had a friendly greeting for the young Queen of Holland on the attainment of her majority, referring to the House of Orange as a link with our Royal family; but for the most part wherever he saw a crowned head he hit it. The _lèse-majesté_ campaign in Germany had led to the prosecution of Herr Trojan, the editor of the _Kladderadatsch_, to whom _Punch_ offered his "Prosit," regretting that there was not also the companion offence of _Humanitätsbeleidigung_ for which punishment could be awarded to "the Imperial buffoon." This was the year in which the young Tsar Nicholas put forward his proposal for general disarmament, but _Punch's_ comments are very much on the lines of his satirical report of an imaginary meeting of the Nations summoned by the Arbitration League in 1894. Everybody was anxious to disarm so long as somebody else set the example. This scepticism now finds vent in the cartoon in which Peace suggests disarmament to Vulcan, understanding that the Tsar's proposal had already seriously interfered with his trade. Vulcan promptly undeceives her. He never was busier--and on orders for Russia.

The assassination of the Empress of Austria in September passed without mention in _Punch_, an omission probably accidental rather than deliberate, since she was popular in England as a great sportswoman. She was also a generous and enlightened patron of the arts, unconventional in her ways, blameless in her life, yet doomed by malign fate to the supreme infelicity of grandeur.

[Sidenote: _Gladstone and "C.-B."_]

_Punch_ certainly missed a great opportunity for a chivalrous tribute to a lady whose unhappiness was greater than her rank, to say nothing of a text for a sermon on the notorious ineptitude of assassins in the choice of victims. Still, it was a harder theme than that which inspired _Punch's_ most notable memorial verses in 1898--the death of Mr. Gladstone. The writer contrasts his end with that of those who have died in their early prime or the ripeness of their manhood, and continues:--

But you, O veteran of a thousand fights, Whose toil had long attained its perfect end-- Death calls you not as one that claims his rights, But gently as a friend.

For though that matchless energy of mind Was firm to front the menace of decay, Your bodily strength on such a loss declined As only Death could stay.

So then with you 'tis well, who after pain, After long pain, have reached your rest at last; But we--ah, when shall England mould again This type of splendour past?

Noble in triumph, noble in defeat, Leader of hopes that others held forlorn, Strong in the faith that looks afar to meet The flush of Freedom's morn.

* * * * *

And now, with all your armour laid aside, Swift eloquence your sword, and, for your shield, The indomitable courage that defied The fortune of the field--

As in the noontide of your high command, So in the final hour when darkness fell, Submissive still to that untiring Hand That orders all things well--

We bear you to your resting-place apart Between the ranks where ancient foe and friend, Kin by a common sorrow at the heart Silent together bend.

A new leader of the Liberal Party emerged in 1899 in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Sir William Harcourt is shown wishing his successor joy--rather ironically--and Mr. Balfour, in the cartoon of "The Wrestlers," acknowledges the strength of his opponent after their first round. "C.-B.'s" promotion to leadership coincided with the discussion of the Tsar's disarmament proposals, which the Liberal leader was destined to revive later on, and in May, representatives of Great Britain attended the Hague Conference convened on the Tsar's initiative. The enthusiasm which _Punch_ had displayed a generation earlier over the Paris Conference had now evaporated, and his contributions to the subject are marked by farcical scepticism. The Tsar and the Kaiser are shown in one picture holding, at some uncertain date in the future, an imaginary review of what remains of the Russian Army, the soldiers resembling Stigginses armed with umbrellas. _Punch's_ twelve suggestions are a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the Tsar's idea, the first being a proposal to postpone the coming into operation of the new rules for 1,000 years. The list of "Some Probable Agenda" for the Hague Conference, published when it was already sitting, is pure burlesque. For example: "Declarations of war shall in future be abolished as being calculated to wound the feelings of opponents." In the same number there is a large picture of Imperial Bruin drinking to Peace, coupling the toast with the name of Victoria, Empress of India (the Queen had just celebrated her eightieth birthday), with a batch of papers, labelled "Further demands in China," behind his back. The political atmosphere was not conducive to the calm discussion of international peace. _Punch's_ espousal of the cause of Dreyfus became increasingly vehement and provocative. In May, under the heading "_A bas la Vérité_," Truth is shown saying "I must get out" (of her well), while the French generals reply: "Not if we know it." A month later, in "At Last," Tenniel depicts indignant Justice triumphing with the Sword of Revision, and trampling Lies and Forgery under foot. The universal preoccupation with the topic is illustrated in Phil May's picture of the little street boy crying because his father "has got Drifus fever." In September, Napoleon's shade is shown scornfully surveying a group of degenerate generals eagerly discussing a "secret dossier", and saying, "_Vive l'armée!_ Yes! But it was not with generals like you that I won my campaigns!" In the face of death _Punch_ has always shown restraint, and, whether from ignorance or of set purpose, wrote of President Faure:--

He sought to serve his country's needs And dying died with harness on.

[Sidenote: _The Verdict of Rennes_]

But the address to France "in memory of the verdict of Rennes" amounts to an indictment of the whole nation:--

Who speaks of pardon? Nay, for France there's none, Nor can be never till the damnèd blot Be wiped away and expiation done. Then, not till then, May be renewed the bonds that once have been, Since we, whatever else, are honest men. Meanwhile, we know you not! Go, hide your face until your heart is clean.

_Punch_, it is true, spoke with a different voice on the same page, but it is doubtful whether his levity was calculated to heal the effect of his self-righteous indignation:--

SOME FURTHER SELF-DENYING ORDINANCES

To be observed by those who wish to testify their righteous indignation at the Rennes verdict by boycotting next year's Paris Exposition, and in the most material and convincing manner to bring about the complete rehabilitation of the unfortunate prisoner.

It is proposed--

That no more French leave shall be taken by individuals desirous of absenting themselves from their duties or annexing other persons' property. Undergraduates will faithfully attend every lecture, city clerks will bury no more aunts, cooks will cease to entertain policemen, and there will be a close time for burglary, kleptomania and kissing under the mistletoe.

That the use of French chalk shall be abandoned in ballrooms, and dancing given up altogether, except on village greens.

That "Frenchmen," alias red-legged partridges, shall be shot on sight, and given to the retriever to eat.

That elbow-grease shall be substituted for French polish.

That French beans shall be cut and given the cold shoulder at table.

That the French language (which at the present moment chiefly consists of the verb _conspuer_) shall be tabooed, except in the case of solecisms like _nom de plume_, _double entendre_, _à l'outrance_, and so forth. _Café_, _coupé_ and similar words shall be pronounced "caif," "coop," etc., as in Canada. _Dépôt_ shall be "depott"; _sang froid_, _au revoir_, _tableaux vivants_ and the like shall be similarly anglicized. Boulogne to be called "Boolong," if mentioned at all, which is inadvisable. No more bull-fights to be attended.

That French grey shall in future mean, as circumstances demand, either black or white.

Towards America _Punch_ shows a tempered benevolence in his open letter to President McKinley, whom he warns against the new-fangled policy of Imperial expansion. His welcome to Mr. Choate, on his appointment as American Ambassador, is entirely cordial: "There are only two things necessary to make your visit a success. Don't believe all you hear, and read your _Punch_ regularly." I do not know whether Mr. Choate took the second piece of advice or not; the first was quite unnecessary. He was a huge success as an Ambassador, though his chief claim on the abiding affection of England rests on his noble and self-sacrificing exertions, in extreme old age and up to the day of his death, in furthering the cause of the Allies and strengthening the brotherhood in arms of America and Great Britain.

[Sidenote: _Lord Milner Censured_]

Meanwhile events in South Africa were rapidly approaching a critical stage. At Mr. Chamberlain's request, a conference between Sir Alfred Milner and President Krüger was held at Bloemfontein early in June to adjust the conflicting claims of the Transvaal Boers and the Uitlanders, whose position Sir Alfred Milner had compared to that of "helots." _Punch_ summed up the conference in two cartoons. In the first, headed "Moral Suasion," Milner is seen endeavouring to pacify Krüger as a cow: "I will sit on the stile and continue to smile." In the second, "The Smile that Failed," the High Commissioner remarks:--

I _have_ sat on this Stile And continued to Smile, But it's had no effect on the Cow.

A very different reading of the situation is given in the letter to Sir Alfred Milner published a week later. Here the High Commissioner is heavily censured not for the failure of the conference, but for the "ridiculous" and "frothy" tone of his dispatch about "helots," and for his rash, impetuous and overbearing temper. In July _Punch_ was still inclined to make light of the whole business, apparently expecting an amicable settlement, and in a burlesque "Story of a Crisis" in "Nabothsland" reflected adversely if obliquely on the pretensions of the Uitlanders. Yet early in September sympathy with the Uitlanders underlies the verses condemning the inconsistency of Little Englanders, who in theory espouse the cause of all oppressed nationalities but their own. The damning blot on the Uitlanders' cause was that they were English. If they had been Finns, for instance, the Little Englander would have shed his last drop of ink in their defence. This was at the lowest a good debating point, and at all points preferable to the unfortunate picture ridiculing the unmilitary appearance of the Boers, President Krüger being shown in the act of reviewing his veterans, a number of fat, unwieldy farmers. The declaration of war came early in October, and _Punch_ unhesitatingly declared his support of the decision in the cartoon "Plain English," where John Bull says to the Boers: "As you will fight, you shall have it. This time it is a fight to a finish." So it was; but few, except Lord Wolseley, expected that the finish would only be reached after a long, obstinate and costly struggle. Lord Wolseley's warning in September, 1899, foreshadows the more famous anticipation of the duration of the Great War made by Lord Kitchener fifteen years later. Many other parallels and contrasts are suggested in _Punch's_ pages as he reflects the varying moods of England during the chequered progress of the campaign. The divisions of opinion at home were more acute than in 1914. Moreover, we entered on the Boer war in a spirit of confidence and complacency

[Sidenote: _The Boer War_]

which rendered the initial reverses more surprising and depressing. Otherwise the alternations of despondency and elation; the criticisms of mismanagement, laxity and indifference, want of intelligence and imagination; and the charges against the enemy of disregarding the rules of the game have a curiously familiar ring. _Punch_ reflected popular opinion in resenting the "detachment" of Mr. Balfour in describing our reverses as "inevitable," and in rebuking the optimism of other Ministers; in his demand for the "facts"; in attributing to President Krüger gratitude to the Opposition for their assistance; in his cheering message to Baden-Powell for "keeping his end up" in Mafeking. Yet he commented severely on the diamond speculators for their "operations" during the war; he had a good word for Lord Morley when he was attacked as a Little Englander; and a strong rebuke for the agencies which announced tours to the South African battlefields as early as April, 1900. Punch had shown John Bull as Mark Tapley--when Kimberley had been relieved and Lord Roberts was advancing--but his comments on the publication of the Spion Kop dispatches reveal grave dissatisfaction with the conduct of the Natal campaign:--

SOME ONE HAD BLUNDERED

Sir Redvers devised an impossible plan Which he trusted to Warren, an obstinate man; Lord Roberts sent home some dispatches, and there He freely expressed what he thought of the pair. The War Office published these documents plain, To the joy of their foes, and the grief of the sane; And while they were reading them, all the world wondered, And promptly concluded that everyone blundered.

Humorous relief was provided by the report that Krüger had encouraged his burghers by circulating the news that London had been captured by the Russians, a method foreshadowing the imaginative exploits of the Germans in the late war. It was based, however, on an incontestable fact--our unpopularity in both hemispheres. The Boer delegates had been welcomed in America, though _Punch_ sought to discount the effect of their propaganda by a cartoon in which Columbia reassures John Bull: "Don't mind those noisy boys of mine. You know, my dear, it's _Election Time_."

The Anglophobe feeling was much more vocal in France, and _Punch_ gives a curious account of the Transvaal section of the Paris Exhibition in October, where signatures were invited and freely appended to addresses to the two Presidents, the bust of Krüger was crowned with palm branches, poetic eulogies were circulated, and the walls covered with "_Mort aux Anglais_," "Chamberlain _est un vache_," etc. Meanwhile, Mafeking had been relieved, and _Punch_ had defended the "loud extremes of passionate joy" which added the now well-nigh forgotten verb "to Maffick" to our current vocabulary. Lord Roberts's uninterrupted advance to Pretoria had moved _Punch_, with many others, to declare very prematurely on June 6th that the war was practically over, though it lasted nearly two years longer, and the slow progress of "rounding up" the Boers actually prompted the suggestion from a leading paper that Lord Kitchener should be recalled and Lord Roberts sent out again. President Krüger's flitting is illustrated in a cartoon in which "Oom Paul" is seen in a small boat, with two millions of treasure, quitting the sinking ship _Transvaal_; while in a set of verses, written after reading of his triumphal progress through France, _Punch_ prophesies for him a green old age in Grosvenor Square. The C.I.V.'s returned in the autumn and were welcomed by the City of London; and shortly afterwards "a Mr. Williams offered respectful apologies to Satan for mentioning him in the same breath with Lord Kitchener." _Punch_, even in his most Chauvinistic mood, never indulged in such abuse of the Boer generals, and at the end of 1900 paid a well-deserved compliment to the elusive De Wet in his cartoon of "De Wet o' de Wisp."

[Sidenote: _China and Australia_]

Before dealing with the subsequent progress of the "guerrilla war," we may turn aside for a moment to other developments overseas. In an epigram on "The Millennium" in August, 1900, _Punch_ writes:--

In some problematic day Strife and wrath shall fade away, Crews no longer blessing pouring On the coxes who have cox'd, When the Boers shall cease from boring And the Boxers shall be boxed.

The revolt of the Boxers in China and the joint expedition of the European Powers assisted by Japan to relieve the Legations in Peking are treated in two cartoons. In the first, in which the Chinese Dragon is seen in the background, Japan expresses her readiness to help the European Powers. She is glad to join them, "but permit me to remark that if some of you hadn't interfered when I had him down, it would have saved all this trouble"--a legitimate comment on the intervention of Germany and Russia after the Chino-Japanese war. In the second, "The Closed Door," Europa is seen armed with an axe, preparing to break her way in to the relief of the Legations. Apocryphal reports of what was happening in China reached a high-water mark of mendacity this summer, and the English Press did not escape the charge of credulity, to put it mildly. Reports of the death of the Dowager Empress were so common as to inspire _Punch_ with a poetic homage to the "lady of the charmed life," and when she shifted her capital, he showed Krüger looking over a wall at her exodus with the remark: "My idea!"

It was in 1900 also that the Australian Commonwealth Bill was introduced by Mr. Chamberlain. _Punch_ in his first reference to the measure, animated by a recognition of Australia's loyalty in the Boer war, assumed that Clause 74, abolishing the appeal to the Privy Council, would be passed. Australia is seen showing the new latchkey she has had made, as she wanted a little more freedom, and Britannia declares her readiness to trust her. This proved premature, and a little later on _Punch_, in a letter to the Australian delegates, waxes sarcastic over the "niggling, pedantic and pettifogging inquisition which it was proposed to institute into the demand for Federation"--_à propos_ of the Privy Council Appeals. As a matter of fact, the clause was amended, because the States were not at one on the point, and all seven Chief Justices favoured the maintenance of the right of Appeal.

Lord Roberts returned to England at the close of the year, and _Punch_ saluted his arrival in "The Home-coming of the Chief." His great services are acknowledged, not least his self-sacrifice in the hour of bitter personal loss:--

Ah! but while a nation's cries Storm against our sullen skies 'Midst the madness and the mirth Flung about your victor's way, If behind the brave array All the hidden heart were known, Save for love of England's name Gladly would you yield the prize, Glory, triumph, wealth and fame, Could you win one grace alone, Could you have your boy again Home from where he takes his rest Lying under alien earth By Colenso's dreadful plain, With the Cross above his breast.

That is truly and finely said, and yet how strangely the epithet "dreadful" sounds to those who have found all the vocabulary of horror beggared by the experiences of the Great War! The opening of the New Year was clouded by the passing of Queen Victoria. In all the sixty years of _Punch's_ existence, even in the moods when his comments on Court and Crown had been frank to the verge of audacity, loyalty to the person of the Sovereign had never failed. His adverse criticism was seldom malicious, and was almost always animated by a desire that the Sovereign should never fall below the standard of _noblesse oblige_. The days of resentment against the Queen's prolonged seclusion had long passed. She had ceased to be "the Royal Recluse," and was unsparing of herself in the discharge of her duties up to within a few weeks of her death. When she spoke in one of her messages of "her beloved people," there could be no question of her sincerity, or of the devotion with which her love was returned.

As Mr. Balfour said significantly of her: "Even those who loved not England loved her," and in later years those who came to scoff at her memory remained to praise:--

THE QUEEN

Born May 24, 1819. Died January 22, 1901.

The tears we disallow to lesser ill Here is no shame for English eyes to shed, Because the noblest heart of all is still-- Because the Queen lies dead.

Grief asks for words, yet silent grief were well; Vain is desire, as passionate prayer was vain; Not all our love can bring, by any spell, Breath to those lips again.

Ah! had but Death forgone his royal claim, Demanding ransom, life for life the price, How loyalty had leaped to kiss the flame Of such a sacrifice!

God knows, in many a need this thing has been-- Light hearts for her have dared the desolate grave; From other hurt their blood has saved the Queen, From Death it could not save.

And of the dregs to drink from sorrow's cup This is most bitter, that with life's release She might not leave her children folded up Between the wings of Peace.

Yet, for a solace in that darkest hour, When even Kings have found themselves alone, Over a people's love she kept her power Firm as her fathers' throne.

[Sidenote: _Candid Friends and Hostile Critics_]

The "Khaki" election of the previous autumn, at which the Government had appealed to the country to decide the issue of fighting the war to a finish, had resulted in the return of the Unionists by a majority of 134, but did not abate the activities of the "Stop the War" party. They were stimulated to further and more vehement protests by the policy of the Concentration Camps, and the loss of life through epidemics caused by the compulsory herding together of those who were interned. Between the denunciations of British "brutalities" by the German Press and the talk of "hecatombs of slaughtered babes" by British Liberals--between "candid friends" and hostile critics--there was not much to choose. _Punch_ invoked the shade of Bismarck to rebuke the excesses of the German journalists; he ridiculed Miss Emily Hobhouse's descriptions of Concentration Camp horrors by giving a list of the luxuries which were not provided there--hairpins, curling-tongs, etc.--and in a cartoon at the close of the year represented the "Stop the War" group as making such a noise that Peace's voice could not be heard. Cleavage was shown in the ranks of the Opposition, and _Punch_ did not fail to emphasize the divergences between Mr. Asquith and the Imperialist Liberals on the one side, and "C.-B." and Sir William Harcourt on the other. General Baden-Powell arrived in England in July, and _Punch's_ greeting aptly describes his mood and that of the man in the street:--

Time has flown; but not forgotten is the tale of Mafeking! Who that lived that Day in London could forget its echoing ring?

How the Town broke into bunting, Piccadilly to Mile End! How each man for joy saluted every other man as friend!

How we crowded to the city in an orgy of delight, Tumbled out of bed for gladness, waving Union Jacks all night!

Even if we overdid it after deadening suspense, Better this than anti-British Queen's Hall windbags' insolence!

Though we later coined a playful word, our soberer sense to show, I would rather "maffick" daily than abet a treacherous foe!

In the controversies that arose over the treatment of various British generals, I may note that _Punch_ supported the motion for an inquiry into the circumstances under which General Colvile was deprived of his command, which was negatived in the House by 262 votes to 248. Over the still more thorny question of General Buller's conduct of the Natal campaign he preserved an impartial attitude, while implying that the general would not exploit his grievance for political purposes. Early in the war _Punch_ paid a rather left-handed compliment to the war correspondents; they are represented as welcoming war because it brought them remunerative employment. In the autumn of 1901 we find him pressing their claims for war medals, and observing that the Press had been shut out but not shut up.

The war, he also notes on the authority of a daily paper, had produced more poets than any similar crisis in English history. A more striking parallel with recent war-products is to be found in _Punch's_ review of the depression, discontent and decline of trade which it had begun to cause before hostilities ceased. This is clearly shown in July, 1901, in the Preface to Vol. cxxi, where _Punch_ rebukes John Bull, no longer in his Mark Tapley vein, for listening to pessimists, and encouraging a seditious and pernicious Press. In the opening stages of the war _Punch_ had been none too friendly to Lord Methuen, but he was righteously indignant at the "Ghoul-like ecstasy" of the Irish Members who cheered the news of the defeat and capture of that gallant soldier in the spring of 1902. The end of the war came in June, and is chronicled in _Punch's_ "Cease Fire" cartoon. The happiest incident of the surrender was the speech made by Lord Kitchener to the Boer delegates at Vereeniging when he said that "if he had been one of them, he would have been proud to have done so well in the field as they had done." _Punch_ did well to record it, for it reflected the national respect felt for a stubborn foe. For confirmation we need only turn to the laconic entry in the _National Register_ for August 16, 1902: "The Boer generals, Botha, De Wet and Delarey ... proceeded to London, and had an enthusiastic popular reception." Subsequent events have justified the somewhat complacent remark attributed to John Bull in the cartoon two months later, _à propos_ of the grant of £3,000,000 to the Transvaal, and the Boers' "Appeal to the Civilized World": "Look here, my friend, stick that up, if you like; but I think you'll find that _I_ talk less than the others and give more."

[Sidenote: _Lord Kitchener's Return_]

Lord Kitchener had returned in July, and _Punch's_ welcome ends on a prophetic note:--

You're a worker from of old, K. of K. Pomps and pæans leave you cold, K. of K. You would like to land in mufti, You would hurry down the dock Not in trappings, plumed and tufty, But in checks and billycock! And you haven't, now It's over, Come to stay; Nor to lie at length in clover, But to change your train for Dover, K. of K. For, although the work's appalling Which should have you here at hand, Yet you've heard the East a-calling Out of India's coral strand; And, as soon as time and place Let our feelings find release, And we've called you, to your face, First in War and first in Peace;-- Thither where the Empire needs you, K. of K., And your own "Ubique" leads you, Lies your way!

Mr. Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presidency of the United States on the assassination of Mr. McKinley, and _Punch_, after condoling with Columbia, saluted the "Rough-Rider."

Our closer relations with Japan and their effect on Russia are symbolized in the cartoon in which she remarks as a _tertia_ anything but _gaudens_: "H'm--I don't like these confidences." In Europe the subject that provoked _Punch's_ closest attention was the treatment of the Poles by Germany. There is an amusing story in "Charivaria," probably apocryphal, but not beyond the possibilities of Prussian pedantry:--

Fifty Prussian schoolgirls have been arrested at Gnesen on a charge of high treason, and the police are said to have their eyes on several Kindergartens, where it is reported that the children have been playing "I'm the king of the Castle" and other games suggestive of Majestätsbeleidigung.

But the whole essence of "Prussification" is summed up in the last quatrain of a brilliant adaptation of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" to the situation in Posen:--

You can take a Pole, as I understand, And play on his nerves with a German Band; But you can't convert his natural temper, or Get him to jig for a German Emperor.

Lord Salisbury had resigned in the summer of 1902, and Mr. Balfour had succeeded to the Premiership. It was not exactly a case of "Amurath to Amurath," but with nephew succeeding to uncle, and the presence of another nephew and a son-in-law in the Cabinet, there was some ground for the once familiar gibes against the "Hotel Cecil." _Punch_ was not unfriendly to the new Premier, and applauded his handling of the negotiations initiated by Germany to secure a British subsidy to the German-controlled Baghdad railway. In "The Trap that Failed," the British Lion "doesn't like the look of it and resolves to go round the other way"; and the verses (after Omar Khayyám) indicate the surprise of "the Potter of Potsdam" at the unexpected firmness of Mr. Balfour. The gradual improvement of our relations with other foreign Powers is symbolized in "The Chain of Friendship," showing King Edward joining in a dance with France, Italy and Portugal; while the strengthening of the Anglo-French _Entente_ is illustrated in the cartoon in which King Edward, presenting the British Lion, says to the French President: "See, M. Loubet, he offers you his paw." An element of reserve, however, is shown in a dialogue in French, mildly satirizing the new Anglomania; and in the burlesque sketch foreshadowing the ludicrous and disastrous influence on both countries of the _Entente_--e.g. the re-introduction of the duel on the initiative of the _Daily Mail_; the presentation of Waterloo Station to the French and, as a set-off, the presentation of the Keys of Calais to the Lord Mayor of London by the Paris Municipal Council. To turn from gay to grave, this was the year of the assassination of the King and Queen of Serbia, recorded in the cartoon of "Murder as the King Maker."

[Sidenote: _Ireland, Army Reform, and India_]

Home politics fill a larger space in 1903 in _Punch's_ pages than for some years previously. Remedial legislation in Ireland inspires the cartoon of Mr. Balfour as St. Patrick--a saint invaluable to the harassed cartoonist--driving out the snakes of sedition. The basis of Mr. Wyndham's Land Purchase Act is well shown in the cartoon illustrating the financial relations of the two countries. Tenant and landlord both present money-boxes labelled "Land Purchase" to John Bull, asking him to "put a thrifle in them"; John Bull scratches his head, but he pays all the same. The difficulties of Mr. Brodrick in securing national support for Army Reform are set forth in the verses on "The Unhappy Warrior" (after Wordsworth), and the cartoon "Ready, aye unready," with John Bull asleep on sentry duty--_à propos_ of the Report of the Royal Commission on the South African war. A little later, John Bull's short memory is satirized in his protest against the size of his new watch-dog. Forgetting that he had clamoured for increase, he now declares that he cannot afford him.

At the opening of the year _Punch_ had lavishly chronicled the glories of the Delhi Durbar. "The Pilgrims to the East" included three members of his staff, who did justice to the occasion both with pen and pencil, and Sambourne's fine cartoon, "_Vivat Imperator_," forms an instructive pendant and palinode to _Punch's_ anti-imperialist misgivings of 1876, when he regarded the assumption of the new title as a piece of shoddy Disraelian Orientalism.

Lord Salisbury's death in 1903 removed a great figure, whose prestige has grown with the knowledge available in later years. We have learned to revise the old view of his political stature as compared with that of Lord Beaconsfield, and to reject the often-quoted but quite erroneous saying attributed to Bismarck that he was "a lath painted to resemble iron." _Punch's_ memorial tribute admits that he "nothing common did or mean":--

When Lord Salisbury, resigning the Premiership, practically retired from public life, a gap was made in the House of Lords no living man might fill. Only once has he returned to the scene of memorable labour. He came with the rest of the cloaked Peers to pay homage to King Edward the Seventh when first he seated himself on the throne which he had long regarded from the point of view of the Cross Benches. There was hope that the ex-Premier would, from time to time, still give the House and the country the advantage of his sagacious counsel, the pleasure of listening to his brilliant speech. But, like the other tall man in another chair, "his heart was worn with work." He was sick of the sometimes mean rivalry of political life, and felt he had earned his leisure.

In a manner unique Lord Salisbury had the faculty of standing apart from his fellow men, regarding them and appraising them as if he himself did not belong to the _genus_. It was as if a man from Mars had visited our planet, studying its pygmy population with amused, on the whole scornful interest. With one exception he was the only statesman who never bent the knee to the Baal known in political chatter as The Man in the Street. The exception is, of course, the Duke of Devonshire, who had further kinship with the Marquis in respect of absolute freedom from desire to get anything for himself out of the game of politics. Intellectually and morally--this latter more precious because more rare--Lord Salisbury uplifted and maintained at high level the standard of English public life. He was a man whom foreigners, equally with his own countrymen, unreservedly trusted, because of a personal quality worth the whole armoury of diplomacy.

With his withdrawal from the stage, the House of Lords as a debating assembly lost its chief attraction. It was worth sitting through a dreary couple of hours for the chance reward of hearing him speak. Whilst others discoursed he sat impassive, taking no note, making no sign of hearing, or caring about, what the noble lord on his legs said or left unspoken. Only a curious rapid movement of the crossed leg betokened cogitation, betrayed closest attention, and the framing of some sentences that would presently play about the adversary's head like forked lightning.

[Sidenote: _The Fiscal Fray_]

An event of greater immediate interest which coincided with the passing of Lord Salisbury was the resignation of Mr. Chamberlain. On his return from a strenuous and exhausting tour in South Africa, he had thrown himself with immense energy into the Tariff Reform campaign, and withdrew from the Cabinet in order to devote his entire energies to the prosecution of the cause. _Punch's_ pages throughout the second half of 1903 furnish a lively chronicle of the progress of Mr. Chamberlain's crusade and the wonderful egg-dance of Mr. Balfour. Early in September the situation is portrayed in "The Parting of the Ways." Mr. Balfour, "long troubled by philosophic doubt," is shown on the road with a knapsack labelled "Treasury Returns" and "Board of Trade Returns," looking at a sign-post, one arm pointing to Chatsworth, the other to Highbury, and saying: "Well, now, I suppose I must really make up my mind."

A week later we have the Fiscal Hamlet in "The Unready Reckoner." Prince Arthur remarks: "O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not the art to reckon," while on the wall hangs a portrait of Mr. Chamberlain as Ophelia. In November, under the heading "An Eye for Effect," _Punch_ exhibits "Foreign Competition" as a Guy on a barrow, with Mr. Chamberlain in charge and conversing with Mr. Balfour:--

ARTHUR: "Ain't you made 'im too 'orrible?"

JOE: "No fear! You _can't_ make 'em too 'orrible!"

Simultaneously, _Punch_ published a burlesque on the _Daily Mail's_ canvass, with expressions of opinion from Henry James, Rudyard Kipling and Mr. A. B. Walkley. The _Daily Express_, not to be outdone, offered a prize of £25 to the owner of the first parrot taught to speak distinctly the phrase: "Your food will cost you more." The "folly of the fray" was not overlooked, but _Punch_ did not misread its essential significance in his cartoon of Mr. Chamberlain in the guise of the political Ancient Mariner who had slain the albatross of Conservative unity.

Foreign politics once more dominated the scene in 1904, when the legacy of friction, bequeathed by Russia's intervention at the close of the Chino-Japanese war and her Manchurian policy after the "Boxer" outbreak, bore its inevitable fruit in the Russo-Japanese war. The sympathy of England with Japan is reflected in the pages of _Punch_. He rebuked the hissing of Russian performers at a performance in the provinces; but satirized the indignation generally expressed in Russia that Japan should have begun hostilities without a formal declaration, or, as _Punch_ put it, without consulting Russia as to whether the date was convenient to her. The fervent patriotism of the Japanese army is cordially applauded: John Bull is shown in a mood of envy, thinking he must try to introduce it at home. The unfortunate Dogger Bank incident, when Admiral Rozhdestvensky's fleet, on their way out to the Far East, fired on a fleet of British trawlers, aroused great indignation, mixed with bitter satire of Russian nerves and thrasonical satisfaction. _Punch_ published a scarifying parody of Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic" on this "famous victory" over a "hostile trawling fleet" engaged in "gutting plaice." Later on in "Admirals All" there is an equally sarcastic comment on the Report of the North Sea Court of Inquiry, at which the Russians were exculpated by an Austrian Admiral. Nor was _Punch's_ indignation expressed against Russia alone. The acceptance of Russian orders by British coal exporters is chastised in a cartoon with the legend as under:--

Old King Coal Was a sordid old soul, And a sordid old soul was he: He sold to the Russ, And he didn't care a cuss, And the Baltic fleet crossed the sea.

On the fall of Port Arthur, however, _Punch_ did not forget to acknowledge the heroism of the defence: here, at least, "the honour of the Russian eagle was untarnished." The war ended in May, 1905, but before its close Russian internal unrest had become menacing and hampered the prosecution of hostilities. _Punch_ read the signs of the times truly in his cartoon of Death as the Czar of all the Russias, with a figure holding a "Petition" lying slain at his feet; and again in his rather cruel verses to "The Little Father":--

THE LITTLE FATHER

Nichol, Nichol, little Czar, How I wonder where you are! You who thought it best to fly, Being so afraid to die.

Now the sullen crowds are gone, Now there's nought to fire upon; Sweet your sleigh bells ring afar, Tinkle, tinkle, little Czar.

Little Czar, with soul so small, How are you a Czar at all? Yours had been a happier lot In some peasant's humble cot. Yet to you was given a day With a noble part to play, As an Emperor and a Man; When it came--"then Nicky ran."

Little Czar, beware the hour When the people strikes at Power; Soul and body held in thrall, They are human after all. Thrones that reek of blood and tears Fall before the avenging years. While you watch your sinking star, Tremble, tremble, little Czar!

The contrasted outlook in Russia and Japan is shown in "Peace and After"--gloom and storm in the one country, general rejoicing in the other. The signing of the Peace in October brought mutiny and insurrection in Russia, repressed for the moment by grape-shot and concessions. _Punch_ distrusted the former method, and warned the Tsar through the mouth of Louis XVI: "Side with the people, Sire, while there is yet time. _I_ was too late." The instalment of constitutional government granted was shorn of its grace by the antecedent display of ruthlessness. _Punch_ typified this situation in his cartoon of the Tsar armed with a sword and leaning on a cannon, with corpses strewn around, and saying: "Now I think the way is clear for universal suffrage." But _Punch_ was premature in saluting the first Duma--opened by the Tsar in person in May, 1906--as the Infant Hercules strangling the twin snakes of Bureaucracy and Despotism. It was the Duma which was strangled by these forces, of which the first was the more potent and malign.

[Sidenote: _Belgium and Germany_]

Another foreign monarch who came in for severe criticism in these years was King Leopold II of the Belgians. Quite recently he had been treated by _Punch_ with a benevolence that bordered on fulsomeness. But 1904 was the year of the "Congo Atrocities," and _Punch_, in a cartoon modelled on the ancient Egyptian lines, compared him with the Pharaoh Rameses II whose scribes counted over the hands cut from his vanquished enemies. This was suggested by the stories of the similar treatment of the natives in the rubber plantations vouched for by the British Consul at Boma. The value of this evidence has since been impaired by the fact that the Consul in question was none other than Roger Casement. From Belgium to Germany the transition is easy. In the last two years of the Unionist administration, German aggressiveness is a constant theme of comment, mainly inspired by misgiving, occasionally enlivened by burlesque belittlement of scaremongers. To the latter category belongs the forecast, at the close of 1904, of the invasion of London, seized during a week-end exodus of its inhabitants. Nor should we fail to note the series of appreciative articles on life in Berlin in 1905, in which "Tom the Tourist" finds the German capital "one of the liveliest, pleasantest and handsomest of cities," and descants on its good beer, pleasant company, genial hospitality, and the absence of any sign of hatred of the British. The writer even goes so far as to compare the Sieges-Allée favourably with some of the statuary of London. But a different note is struck in the lines on the vicarious patriotism of those who objected to conscription; in the references to the inadequacy of our coast defences; in the satisfaction expressed in the appointment of Sir John Fisher as First Sea Lord, and the improvement in naval gunnery; and in the satire directed against the new German Chancellor, Count von Bülow, for his cynical "_blague_." As "_Der Taubadler_," he reproves President Roosevelt for Jingoism, and declares:--

Our passion for ruling the brine Is based on a single and pure design-- To serve as a sort of Marine Police, Patrons of Universal Peace.

Lord Roberts's warning speech at the London Chamber of Commerce in the late summer of 1902 had prompted the cartoon "The Call to Arms." John Bull, aroused from slumber and only half-awake, asks "What's wrong?" Lord Roberts, the warning warder, replies: "You are absolutely unfitted and unprepared for war!" whereon John Bull rejoins drowsily: "Am I? You _do_ surprise me," and goes to bed again. Growing distrust of the Kaiser is shown in the cartoon in which he figures as "The Sower of Tares" after Millais's picture, while _Punch_ simultaneously manifests his satisfaction at the strengthening of the Anglo-French _Entente_. The British working man, if _Punch_ is to be believed, disliked all foreigners, but his pet aversion was "them blooming Germans." There was, at any rate, a legitimate grievance in the fact that fifty-nine foreign pilots were employed on our coasts, whereas abroad our ships were compelled to take native pilots; and the Nelson Centenary on October 21, 1905, impelled _Punch_, in an address to the hero of Trafalgar, to deplore the decay of national patriotism in a vein of pessimism happily falsified ten years later:--

Much you would have to marvel at Could you return this autumn-tide; You'd find the Fleet--thank God for that-- Staunch and alert as when you died; But, elsewhere, few to play your part, Ready at need and ripe for action; The rest--in idle ease of heart Smiling an unctuous satisfaction.

I doubt if you could well endure These new ideals (so changed we are), Undreamed, Horatio, in your Philosophy of Trafalgar; And, should you still "expect" to see The standard reached which you erected, Nothing just now would seem to be So certain as the unexpected.

The "decline and fall" of the Unionist administration are symbolized and explained in two cartoons in the late summer of 1905. In one Mr. Balfour is seen, a lonely swimmer, wallowing in the sea of Public Opinion. A voice from the Tug (Tory Organization) hails him, urging him to keep afloat and he'll "drift in to the shore" (Session 1906). He replies that he "can't do much against a tide like this." The sources of weakness are even better diagnosed in the cartoon of August 30, "Shelved," showing the group of statesmen who had resigned--the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Ritchie, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Lord George Hamilton and Mr. George Wyndham.

The rout of the Government at the General Election of 1906 was a veritable _débâcle_. Liberal candidates were returned who never got in before or after: there is a story of one so overwhelmed by his wholly unexpected success that he fainted on the declaration of the poll. Ministers went down like ninepins, and on the meeting of the new Parliament _Punch_ descants on the disappearance of the "old familiar faces"--Mr. Arthur Balfour and his brother Gerald, Alfred Lyttelton and St. John Brodrick, Bonar Law, Sir John Gorst, Sir Albert Rollit, Sir W. Hart Dyke, Gibson Bowles, and, "saddest fate of all and most lamented," Mr. Henry Chaplin. The emergence of a new, formidable, but uncertain factor was at once recognized in the cartoon in which John Bull looks over the wall at a bull labelled Labour Vote. The Trade Disputes Bill, the first and most notable concession to the demands of Trade Unionism, is discussed in the next section.

_Punch_ was more preoccupied with Lord Haldane's new army scheme, and when the War Minister, in introducing it, declared that the country would not be "dragooned into conscription," interpreted his statement "in other and less conventional terms" as indicating a conviction that "it is the inalienable right of the free-born British citizen to decline to lift a finger in his country's defence." Lord Haldane's proposals for retrenchment are symbolized in his efforts to make big toy soldiers fit his box, instead of making the box fit the soldiers. Wasters and loafers who had cheered "Bobs" on his return from South Africa are shown expressing indignation at his wanting to enforce universal military service. _Punch's_ reluctant admission of our national lethargy finds vent in a dialogue emphasizing the predominance of the _Panem et Circenses_ spirit--devotion to the Big Loaf and spectacular games--coupled with a loss of our supremacy in games. The pageant mania became acute in 1907, when _Punch_ satirically asks, "Can you cite any other country where it is impossible to walk out of doors without colliding with an historical pageant?"

Lord Haldane's visit to Germany in 1906 is burlesqued in a diary professing to reveal his paramount interest in German philosophy and literature; and a picture, in which he appears in a _Pickelhaube_, expresses the misgivings of two British soldiers who had overheard him "talking to himself in German--something horrible." This attitude of critical distrust is maintained throughout the next four years. In March, 1908, the new gun designed for the Territorial Force prompts a dialogue between the War Minister and Field-Marshal _Punch_:--

MR. HALDANE: "In the event of invasion, I shall depend upon my brave Territorial force to manipulate this magnificent and complicated weapon."

F.-M. _Punch_: "Going to give them any training?"

MR. H.: "Oh, perhaps a fortnight or so a year."

F.-M. _Punch_: "Ah! Then they'll need to be pretty brave, won't they?"

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

HALDANE (at Cavalry Manoeuvres): "You see those three men? Well, they're pretending to be one hundred. Isn't that imaginative?"

MR. _Punch_: "Realistic, you mean. That's about what it will come to with us in real warfare."

_Punch_ was not happy about our Navy either, and in 1906 he had rallied Lord Tweedmouth, then at the Admiralty, for reassuring Britannia against the German menace. It was no use to say, "We don't take no account of them things"; the monster was there, and could not be belittled. By the end of the year, however, _Punch's_ complacency was restored by the advance in our naval gunnery, and Britannia is seen proudly showing the impressive tabulated results of our big gun practice. The Germans are the only modern people who have a single word to express delight in the misfortunes of others--_Schadenfreude_. It is not a noble sentiment, but a suspicion of it mingles with _Punch's_ comments on Germany's internal troubles. In 1878 he had shown Bismarck squeezing down the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box, and nearly thirty years later repeats the formula at the expense of Count von Bülow; but the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box was now a much more formidable figure: it was "a bigger task for a smaller man."

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Triple Alliance fell in 1907, and _Punch_ indicated that Italy's allegiance was already wearing thin. In performing the trio "We are a happy Family," Austria's "We are" is marked _piano_, and that of Italy _dubioso_.

In the domain of high politics, Imperial and International, 1907 was marked by two notable events. The grant of autonomy to the Transvaal undoubtedly contained an element of risk, but the sequel showed that magnanimity was the best policy. General Botha's Premiership proved a symbol of reconciliation destined in time to bear "rare and refreshing fruit," and _Punch_ was fairly entitled to invoke the reluctant testimony of Krüger's shade: "What! Botha _Premier_? Well, these English _do_ 'stagger humanity'!" Secondly, there was the Hague Conference, over which _Punch_ maintained his attitude of scepticism, on the ground that each Power was unwilling to lead the way in disarmament. In his cartoon of the various nations at the door of the Conference everybody says, "After you, Sir," to everybody else. The Government's extensive programme of legislation for the following session is shown in the picture of "C.-B." at the piano accompanying the Infant Prodigy, 1908. The programme includes the "Twilight of the Lords," "_Etudes Pacifiques_"; "_Danse anti-Bacchanale_" and "Irish Rhapsody" with Campobello, McKenna, Asquith and Birrell as soloists. The campaign against the Lords, opened at Edinburgh by "C.-B." in October, 1907, suggested the cartoon of the "Fiery Cross" with the Premier as a kilted warrior shouting, "Doon wi' the Lords!" while the accompanying verses, in the ballad manner of Scott, describe the passing on of the fiery cross by Lord Crewe, John Morley, Mr. Sinclair (now Lord Pentland), Lord Tweedmouth, Mr. Runciman, and "Lloyd McGeorge."

[Sidenote: _Naval Misgivings_]

The mention of Lord Tweedmouth reminds one that the question of our naval supremacy had entered on a new phase. As _Punch_ put it in his "Charivaria" in November, 1907, "There seems to be a difference of opinion between the Prince of Wales and Sir John Fisher. Some little time ago His Royal Highness, speaking at the Guildhall, cried: 'Wake up, England!' Sir John, speaking in the same place, has now issued the advice: 'Sleep quietly in your beds.'"

In the spring of 1908 occurred the awkward incident of the Kaiser's letter to Lord Tweedmouth on Naval Retrenchment. _Punch_, in his "Essence of Parliament," benevolently minimizes the First Lord's indiscretion, which, along with other causes, led to his withdrawal from the Admiralty; at the same time there appeared some highly ironical reflections on the attitude of the advocates of the Two-Power-Standard. In an ingenious adaptation of Tennyson's ballad of "The Revenge," Sir Thomas Howard refuses to fight because he is one ship short of the Two-Power-Standard.

In early Victorian days the Duke of Wellington was commonly alluded to as "the Duke" _par excellence_. In the opening years of the present century, in political circles at any rate, when people spoke of "the Duke" they always meant the Duke of Devonshire, and for reasons which are tersely and correctly given in _Punch's_ brief memorial verses when he died in March, 1908:--

If to have held his way with steadfast will, Unspoiled of Fortune, deaf to praise or blame, Asking no favour but to follow still The patriot's single aim:--

If, in contempt of other pride of race, By honesty that chose the nobler part, Careless of fame's reward, to win a place Near to the common heart:--

If these be virtues large, heroic, rare, Then is it well with him, the dead, to-day, Who leaves a public record clean and fair, That Time shall not gainsay.

The tribute is one which, we think, would have appealed to the dead statesman, a man of few words, but who in the words of another Duke, the Duke of Argyll, was "firm as the rock, and clear as the crystal that adorns the rock."

A few weeks later Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, broken in health, resigned the Premiership, dying so soon afterwards that he virtually died in harness. _Punch_ did not overstate things in describing his death as "a common grief" to Liberals and Unionists, for he had outlived the obloquy of party bitterness and revealed as Premier qualities which his successor, Mr. Asquith, fittingly described when he spoke of him as "our revered and trusted chief." By a strange and happy irony of fate, the statesman who had opposed the Boer war was responsible for the policy of reconciliation which might have been much harder if that war had not been waged.

Germany loomed large on the political horizon in 1908. This was the year of Mr. Lloyd George's visit to inquire into the working of the scheme of national insurance, a visit which _Punch_ treated with undisguised irony as a belated afterthought. It was also the year of the Kaiser's famous interview, published in the _Daily Telegraph_, in which he claimed credit for magnanimity to England during the Boer war, with the result of annoying his Chancellor and having to consent to a revision of his conception of the Imperial prerogative. _Punch's_ open letter to "The Great Misunderstood" exhibits considerable scepticism of his friendliness, and a set of verses, in the same spirit, are inspired by the activities of the German Women's Navy League. An English M.P. had been exhibiting a toy model of a German gunboat used by this organization as a collecting box, and it was alleged that these toys were handed about in German schools with the request: "Give us your pence, so that we can thrash the English."

[Sidenote: _The Kaiser's Soliloquy_]

The Kaiser's fiftieth birthday is commemorated in a "Soliloquy in Berlin," in which the Emperor boasts of having swept aside Bismarck and repressed the "too clamorous people" by police, prison or exile, and defends his impulsive loquacity against his critics. The King must know best, and "while all the discontented loose their tongues and rave against him, shall the King be still?" Moreover, he claims to have kept the world from war:--

And I have kept the peace. Was that well done? I know not, but I know I kept the peace, I, whose blood boiled to hear the clash of swords, At whose command a million men would spring Obedient to the conflict; I, whose soul was made for glorious battle, who could lead Ten thousand thundering horsemen to the charge, Have kept the peace, while others urged to war.

Simultaneously _Punch_ illustrates the growing patriotic fervour at home. Golfers are becoming shy of being detected on their way to or from the links by men in uniform. And _Punch_ praises _An Englishman's Home_ as a "wonderful play," in which the case for national service is presented "with rare tact, and void of offence even to the most violent anti-militarist." Indeed, he goes so far as to admit that the author's advocacy is impaired by his making the vulgar cheerful young "slacker" delightfully human, while the good young patriot is too stagey and talkative. German aggressiveness is illustrated in the cartoon showing the German sailor adopting our "Jingo" song, the copyright having expired. Editorially, though obliquely, _Punch_ deplores the subservience of vital questions of foreign policy to party questions, and gives special praise to Sir Edward Grey. "Prenderby," who impersonates a detached view, pleads for a Coalition Cabinet--a Ministry of all the patriots. In the spring of 1909 Mr. Asquith figures as the Night Watchman who cries "All's well," but John Bull from his window replies: "So you say. All the same, I shall sit up for a bit." This was the time of the cry for more _Dreadnoughts_: "We want Eight and we won't wait." The vote of censure on the Government for their inadequate naval preparations was rejected by 353 votes to 135, and _Punch_ satirized the Labour Party's idea of battleships in a pictorial representation of H.M.S. _Inoffensive_, _Innocuous_, etc. It is curious to find in another of _Punch's_ editorial dialogues one of the speakers constantly harping on what might happen in 1914 when _Dreadnoughts_ would be obsolete; while the happy-go-lucky attitude of the average subaltern towards a possible war is expressed in the wish attributed to one of them: "Let's hope it will come between the polo and the huntin'." Lord Roberts's National Service Bill was thrown out in the Lords in July by a narrow majority. _Punch's_ artist is most frankly honorific to Lord Roberts; but the summary of the debate given by his Parliamentary representative is not even non-committal, for it contrives to disparage Lord Milner while emphasizing the opposition of the Duke of Northumberland and the caution of Lord Lansdowne.

[Sidenote: _Mr. Birrell as Chief Secretary_]

At the close of the year the impenitence of the Belgian administrators of the Congo is held up to execration in the cartoon of the slave-driver outside the European Hall of Deliberation, armed with a whip, and saying, "I'm all right. They're still talking"; while a naked slave lies helpless and prostrate in the foreground.

After a brief and ineffectual tenure of office at the Board of Education, Mr. Birrell had, whether out of heroic self-sacrifice or ignorance, accepted the most thankless and arduous of all portfolios--that of the Irish Chief Secretaryship. For the sequel, one has to turn to the Report of the Hardinge Committee of Inquiry into the Dublin revolution of Easter, 1916--one of the most lacerating public documents ever devoted to the dissection of Ministerial incompetence. But in 1909 there was, no doubt, much that appealed to _Punch_ in the notion of setting a professional humorist to govern a quick-witted people. There never was a greater mistake. Much was and is forgiven to a Minister who amuses the House, but the legacy of hatred, faithfully cherished by those who forgot nothing but benefits received, was not to be cancelled by epigrams which provoked the facile laughter of St. Stephen's. There was, however, a probably quite unintended though extra appropriateness in the title of the verses to him as "The Right Man in the Wrong Place," for the chief ground of complaint against the Chief Secretary was that he was conspicuous by his absence from Ireland at all critical moments, and eclipsed the "Absentee landlords" at their own game. In 1909 _Punch_ contented himself with showing Mr. Birrell as a Lecturer on Old Age Pensions as a means of allaying discontent, and reducing the method to absurdity. The boon was naturally popular, since, as _Punch_ noted on good authority, it had been claimed and received by more than 50,000 people not qualified under the Act.

[Sidenote: _Wait and See_]

In 1910 two general elections, fought on questions of internal policy, and the conflict over the Parliament Bill diverted attention from foreign politics. Lord Rosebery's scheme for the reform of the Upper Chamber is treated in light-hearted fashion in the cartoon of the Selection Committee of the Peers' Royal Academy. Lord Curzon and Lord Lansdowne criticize Lord Rosebery's "problem picture": Lord Halsbury bluntly ejaculates, "Take it away." _Punch_, however, recognized the serious intentions of the Government in "The Constitution in the Melting Pot," where Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George are the three witches bending over the cauldron. The Unionists had gained some ground in the January elections, but not nearly enough; in December, when party feeling ran much higher, they failed to improve their position, in spite of the offer of a Referendum to determine the question of Tariff Reform, and of their insistent warnings as to the danger of single-chamber Government. _Punch_, with some reserves, was decidedly opposed to the Government programme, and a hostile critic alike of the platform exuberance of Mr. Lloyd George and the "wait and see" policy of Mr. Asquith:--

Schemes are shattered, plots are changed, Plans arranged and re-arranged! Words are eaten; every day Broken pledges thrown away; Here the riddle--where the key? Wait and see!

Does his wandering course reveal Only love of Britain's weal? Does he toil through heavy sand Seeking how to keep his land Clean and prosperous and free? Wait and see!

Is it that he turns his eyes To a goal that needs disguise? Just a paltry party score, Checked by some about him, more-- More particular than he? Wait and see!

Is he one whose wavering mind Lightly veers to every wind, Hither pitched and thither tossed, While the country pays the cost Of his flaccid vertebræ? Wait and see!

Be it not that he has sold All the faith that men should hold Sacred; that he walks his ways, Flogged by those whom he obeys, At whose word he bows the knee-- Wait and see!

Wait and see, and wait again: But the country waits in vain. Waits for order--finding none; Sees but duty left undone.

* * *

What will Britain's verdict be? Wait and see!

The proposed "federalization" of the British Isles is burlesqued in the figure of John Bull, looking very much ashamed of himself, arrayed in top-boots, with a kilt, a shamrock-sprigged waistcoat, a Welsh steeple-crowned hat, and a shillelagh. The "People's Budget" is disparaged in a picture showing the general apathy of those whom it was intended to benefit. And as for the threatened creation of 500 Liberal Peers to outvote the recalcitrant "backwoodsmen," _Punch_ satirized the plan as a mere piece of window-dressing. In "The Chance of a Lifetime" Mr. Asquith is seen arraying his shop-front with 500 coronets "dirt cheap," Mr. Lloyd George as his assistant handing up the hat-boxes with the comment, "Bound to go like hot cakes."

[Sidenote: _Death of King Edward_]

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

Sir Edward Grey declared at Darlington that he saw no need for war. Unfortunately, however, this is a great age for luxuries.

Here _Punch_ added a gloss to a wise truism. A remark in the Isle of Man _Weekly Times_ at the beginning of the year touched the nadir of sordid parochialism. Discussing the "inevitableness" of a war with Germany, the writer observed: "It would mean the ruination of the Island. It would kill all chances of a successful season, upon which the Island depends." _Punch_ "lifted" the quotation, but here the text beggared any comment.

By the assassination of the King and Crown Prince of Portugal in the autumn, monarchy was ended in the country of our "Oldest Ally." _Punch_ denounced murder whether as the maker or unmaker of kings; and on this occasion added to his condolences with the survivors a caustic reference to France, who is shown briefly congratulating Portugal on becoming a Republic; but she is "too busy to talk, having just escaped another revolution at home"--an allusion to the railway strike and its suppression by the drastic measures of M. Briand's Ministry. The death of King Edward in May, at the height of his popularity and prestige, was happily unattended by violence or upheaval, and left the position of the Crown unshaken. _Punch_ was not one of those who regarded King Edward as the initiator of our foreign policy, but gratefully acknowledged his services in smoothing the path of his Ministers:--

At midnight came the Majesty of Death-- Kings of the earth abide this King's decree-- Sudden, and kindlier so, to seal the breath And set the spirit free.

And now the Peace he held most near his heart, That Peace to which his country's steps he led-- So well for us he played his royal part-- Broods o'er him lying dead.

[Sidenote: _The German Menace_]

Thus passes Britain's crown from King to King, Yet leaves secure a nation's deathless love, Dearer than Empire, yea, a precious thing All earthly crowns above.

In the winter of 1910 the German Crown Prince visited India, and was welcomed and fêted wherever he went. _Punch_ regarded the tour as making for _rapprochement_ and represented the Prince as an amiable young sportsman writing home to "dear Papa" to say that he was "doing himself proud and finding the English not half such bad fellows when you get to know them." A more critical view of Germany's intentions is revealed in the cartoon "The Blind Side," in which a German officer applauds a Dutchman for the resolve to fortify his sea-front against England as a true economy. It might be costly, but "see what you save on the Eastern Frontier where there's nobody but us." A similar element of misgiving is betrayed in "the New Haroun Al Raschid"--a dream of Baghdad, "Made in Germany"--with the Kaiser in Oriental costume seated on the engine of a "non-stop" express to the Persian Gulf.

[Sidenote: _The War in Tripoli_]

In the spring of 1911 the proposed reduction of expenditure on the Navy inspired _Punch's_ "Little-Navy Exhibit"--a design for a figure of Britannia, "as certain people would like to see her, "with a pointless trident, diminutive shield and helmet, in spectacles and elastic-sided boots, leading a starveling lion with its tail between its legs. Simultaneously Germany's idea of the _Pax Germanica_ is satirized in a picture of the Teuton Dovecote, with cannons pointing from each door, surmounted by the German Eagle warning the Arbitration bird: "No foreign doves required; we hatch our own, thank you." Our relations with the U.S.A. are symbolized in "Dis-armageddon," President Taft and Sir Edward Grey shaking hands over a grave with the notice, "All hatchets may be buried here." Hostility to the "Declaration of London" had grown throughout the year. It had been described as "a sword for the Unionist Party"; picture posters represented the destruction under it of neutral ships carrying food to Great Britain, and _Punch_, without going the lengths of the _Morning Post_, the Imperial Maritime League, or Mr. T. Gibson Bowles, was far from enthusiastic over its ratification. "I'm sure," his Britannia remarks, looking at herself in the glass, "my costumiers want me to look my best. But I have a sort of feeling that this thing may rather hamper my sea-legs." Germany's complaints against the policy of "isolating" or "surrounding" her were now frequently heard, and are unsympathetically treated in the portrait of the German officer in full uniform, with his knuckles to his eyes, dolorously protesting, "Nobody loves me--and they all want to trample on me!" Nor was _Punch_ inclined to look more favourably on Italy's policy of aggrandisement in North Africa. The inglorious war with Turkey in Cyrenaica brought no credit to the combatants or to the Concert of Europe. _Punch_ summed up the situation by showing Dame Europa (of the Hague Academy for Young Gentlemen) looking sourly with folded arms at two boys "scrapping" in a corner, and observing, "I thoroughly disapprove of this, and as soon as ever it's over I shall interfere to put a stop to it." The conduct of the war led to ugly charges against the Italians, and in "The Euphemisms of Massacre" Turkey, surveying a scene of carnage at Tripoli, sarcastically remarks: "When _I_ was charged with this kind of thing in Bulgaria, nobody excused _me_ on the ground of 'military exigencies'!"

The Anglo-Russian agreement in regard to Persia was defended by Sir Edward Grey in November, 1911, as having ended friction between the two Powers. _Punch_ thought otherwise, and in December he showed the Bear cheerfully sitting on the tail of the Persian Cat while the British Lion remarks: "If we hadn't such a thorough understanding I might almost be tempted to ask what you're doing there with our little play-fellow." Yet Sir Edward Grey's explanations satisfied the Unionists better than the advanced Liberals and the Labour Party. Already the Government were being attacked for seeing events through French spectacles, and in a memorable cartoon _Punch_ recorded the emergence of the demand for "The New Diplomacy." An "Advanced Democrat," having made his way into a room with "Private. Members Only" on the door, remarks to the Foreign Secretary: "Look here, we've decided that this isn't to be a private room any more; and you're to put your cards on the table and then we can all take a hand." Whereon Sir Edward Grey replies: "What, and let my opponents see them too?" In this context one may be permitted to recall a picture, published about the same time, of a constable applying a familiar test to a belated reveller protesting his sobriety:--

CONSTABLE: "Can you say 'British Constitution'?"

BELATED ONE (_with strongest "Die-Hard" convictions_): "There ishn't one now!"

_Punch's_ Almanack for 1912 treats of current events in a light-hearted spirit. There is one picture, however, with an ominous and prophetic heading, "Period--The War of 1914," in which an irate M.F.H. abuses the invaders--unmistakable Germans--for heading the fox. The artist, Mr. J. L. C. Booth, a very gallant gentleman, fell in Gallipoli in 1915. But there were other and more unmistakable omens at the opening of the New Year, when M. Caillaux, before resigning, had attempted to reconstruct his Cabinet with M. Delcassé as Foreign Minister--a situation typified by _Punch_ in his cartoon of "The return of the scapegoat." M. Caillaux resigned under a cloud; M. Delcassé failed to form a Government, but remained on as Minister of Marine under M. Poincaré. For the moment Germany's troubles at home diverted attention from her foreign relations. The demands of the Socialists are illustrated in the dialogue between the Kaiser on the summit of a rocky peak and a figure climbing up to the summit. "What business have you here?" asks the Kaiser, and the Socialist answers: "I, too, want 'a place in the sun.'"

In March the Navy estimates issued by Mr. Churchill as First Lord were expressly stated to be conditional upon the naval programmes of other nations: _Punch_ accordingly showed him as the Plain Dealer hoisting as his signal "England expects that every nation will do its duty--by not increasing its armaments." The rival views on naval concentration are shown a little later in the "Geography Lesson" given by "Dr." Kitchener--Lord Kitchener had gone to Egypt as Agent-General in the previous year--to Master Churchill and Master Asquith. "What do you know about the Mediterranean?" he asks, and Master Churchill replies: "Well, it looks a nice place for ships; but, to tell you the truth, we've been concentrating our attention on the North Sea lately, haven't we, Herbert?" and Master Asquith replies: "That is so."

The appointment of Baron Marschall von Bieberstein as German Ambassador in London was well received. He was Germany's strongest diplomatist. He had raised the prestige of his country to an unexampled pitch at Constantinople without losing the respect of his British colleagues, and was credited with the desire to promote a better understanding with England. Unfortunately he died suddenly before _Punch's_ expectations could be realized. Meanwhile Mr. Haldane at the War Office had "turned turtle (dove)" to such an extent that in _Punch's_ view his occupation was nearly gone. Yet the travesty of Dicksee's "Harmony," with the Kaiser playing on a Krupp organ to a stout and adoring Germany, is by no means reassuring. Consols were steadily "slumping," and the organized resistance of Ulster was already regarded as serious. _Punch's_ views in the course of the next few years underwent a good deal of modification, but he was never sympathetic to Sir Edward Carson. When the old cry, "Ulster will fight," was raised to discredit the son of the statesman who had invented the phrase, _Punch_ called it "a silly game. If Ulster fights against free speech, then Ulster will be wrong." When the "Covenant" of Resistance to Home Rule was signed by the Ulster Loyalists in September, 1912, _Punch_ satirized their action under the heading "Ulster will write," with General Carson on horseback, waving a pen and crying, "Up, nibs, and at 'em!"

_Punch_, it is to be feared, did not credit the Balkan League with exalted ideals in entering on the conflict with Turkey in 1912. Bulgaria, in his cartoon of August 28, challenges Turkey, at grips with Italy, to mortal combat, and Turkey replies: "Certainly," adding to Italy, "I hope you won't think me discourteous if I cannot continue to give you my undivided attention." Two months later we are shown the Great Powers all sitting on the seething pot of "Balkan troubles" but unable to keep the lid down. By November a "New Eagle" with four heads--Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece--is seen approaching the door of the Council of Europe. More acute in its reading of the signs of the times is the picture of Turkey, a sinister figure, rubbing his hands as he reads the placard: "Austria threatens Serbia. European Crisis," and saying, "Good! If only all those other Christian nations get at one another's throats, I may have a dog's chance yet"--a situation realized by the launching of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in July, 1914. Early in December an armistice was agreed to, and by the middle of the month a conference of Balkan delegates assembled in London. The deliberations of the Peace Conference continued till the end of the year, but in the Christmas cartoon of "Prince Charming and the Sleeping Beauty," Sir Edward Grey has not yet succeeded in inducing Peace to wake up. As a matter of fact, the Conference was suspended on January 6, 1913, on the 26th the Balkan delegates broke off further negotiations with the Porte, and on February 3 war was resumed. _Punch's_ comment on the threatened intervention of Roumania was severe but not unmerited; the "Bayard of Bukharest" observes politely to Bulgaria, "I am sure, dear old friend, you will wish to recompense me for not stabbing you in the back from behind in the previous bout, and I am therefore proposing to anticipate your kindness by making off with your coat (Silistria)." Sir Edward Grey's hope, expressed in the House of Commons in March, that Turkey would now confine its energies to "consolidating" itself in Asia Minor, met with ironical approval from _Punch_, who in the following month represented Turkey responding to Europa's complacent assurance that the war was "practically over" with the still more complacent comment: "My felicitations, Madam. Everything seems to point to the outbreak of a sanguinary peace." And unfortunately the cynical anticipation was only too well verified in the sequel. King Nicholas's defiance marked the opening stages of the new conflict--typified in the Montenegrin bantam blocking the road for the great Powers, but getting out of the way at the last moment. Skutari was occupied by troops of the Powers on May 14, and on May 30 the Treaty of Peace between the Allies and the Porte was signed at St. James's Palace. But _Punch_, in his cartoon of "Peace comes to Town," was not unfair in making Sir Edward Grey adjure the fair damsel riding behind him to sit close and not slip off as on the last occasion they fared that way together. So many outstanding questions remained unsettled that a pacific solution was impossible; the Balkan war was resumed on June 30. Bulgaria put up a great fight against the Serbians and Greeks, but the advance of the fresh Roumanian army into her territory rendered her position desperate. _Punch_ had already shown Turkey offering its services as benevolent mediator to the Balkan "allies." Before the end of the month the Turks had re-entered the field and re-occupied Adrianople only three months after they had been driven out. "Quite like old times, being back here," the Turk says to Dame Europa in _Punch's_ cartoon, and when Europa replies, "Ah! but you'll be kicked out, you know," he retorts calmly, "Well, that'll be like old times too." An armistice was signed on July 31, and the second Treaty of Peace was signed by Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia on August 10. Bulgaria, whose losses in the two wars had been very heavy, was seriously penalized by the new adjustment of boundaries and the consequent loss of territory. Roumania was cordially congratulated by the Kaiser for her "wise and statesmanlike policy," and Greece, who gained a vast acquisition of territory around Salonika, expressed through the mouth of King Constantine--King George had been assassinated at Salonika in March--her indebtedness to Germany for the war training of her officers. _Punch's_ comment was sardonic. In "_Deutschland über Alles_" the King of the Hellenes observes to the Kaiser, "Our success, as you know, was entirely due to you," and the Kaiser replies: "Thanks, thanks," adding, aside, "I suppose he can't be referring to our organization of the Turkish army."

[Sidenote: _The Balkan Cockpit_]

The attitude of the Concert of Powers over the question of Adrianople is indicated in the cartoon in which Sir Edward Grey tells the Turk, the man in possession, that he will have to go, but that the Powers haven't decided who was to turn him out. European intervention proving hopeless, the matter was left for direct negotiations between Bulgaria and Turkey, with the result that the new frontier gave Turkey about one hundred square miles more territory together with Adrianople. _Punch_, on the eve of the signature of the treaty, anticipated the triumph of Turkey, who is seen pasting up, on the door of the Hotel Adrianople, a notice, "Under the same old management," over a previous notice, "Under entirely new management," and expressing regret at being unable to oblige Europa by retiring. Europa, with the Treaty of London in her hand, saves her face by replying with dignity: "Not at all. You may remember that at the very start I strongly insisted on the _status quo_." The Powers had decided at the close of 1912 that Albania was to receive autonomy, but the International Commission of Control was unable to check guerrilla fighting between Serbians and Albanians. Europa found it, in _Punch's_ phrase, a very difficult task to hush the infant Albania; and Prince William of Wied, chosen by the Powers as sovereign, or "Mpret" of Albania in November, 1913, excited more ridicule than sympathy during his brief and troubled tenure of office.

The Balkan wars, which began in an organized attempt to liberate Christians from the Turkish yoke, developed into an internecine struggle for aggrandisement amongst the members of the League. The Balkan Peninsula unhappily justified its description as "the cockpit of Europe," or, to quote the words of a traveller who visited it between the first and second wars: "one vast madhouse, where sanity seems ridiculous and folly wisdom." The Treaty of Bukharest, so far from allaying discord, only fomented the ambitions which precipitated the world conflict.

[Sidenote: _Ulster Bars the Way_]

France's reversion to three years' service--applauded by _Punch_ in his cartoon "_Pour la Patrie_"--had been countered by the German Army Bill introduced by the new German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, in a somewhat ominous speech in April. _Punch_ had already symbolized the acceleration of the armament race in his picture of Hans and Jacques, each bowed down under a tremendous burden of warlike equipment, exclaiming in rueful unison: "And I hear there's more to come."

Mr. Churchill's scheme of a naval holiday inspired hopes which were partially shared by _Punch_, but damped by the German Chancellor's speech on the ground that the idea had not been taken up as practical in England either by Parliament or public opinion. The renewal of Mr. Churchill's suggestion later in the year met with an even more unfavourable reception. Admiral Tirpitz makes his _début_ in _Punch_ as an apostle of German naval expansion; General Bernhardi had followed up his notorious book on _Germany and the Next War_ with articles pointing to Ireland as an ally of Germany in the enemy's camp; and the outrages on Alsatian civilians by German officers at Zabern and Metz emphasized the danger of militarism at home as well as abroad. The incident was historic because it was the first notable example of the cleavage between the army and the people in Germany, the Radicals and Socialists having carried a vote of censure in the Reichstag against the Imperial Chancellor. The war closed all ranks for a time; but Zabern was a straw which showed how the wind was beginning to blow--the wind which became a tempest in the autumn of 1918.

If Great Britain in 1913 was not exactly a cockpit or a madhouse, she was not without her domestic troubles. One of the earliest cartoons of the year exhibits the Home Rule Bill advancing under the shield of the Parliament Act. The advance was barred by Ulster, for this was the year of the formation of the Provisional Government, the enrolment of the Ulster volunteers, proclamations against the importation of arms, the emergence of "King Carson," and a general recrudescence of party acrimony. _Punch_, in a laudable desire to see ourselves as others see us, depicted in "A Nation of Fire-Eaters" a peaceful Teuton horrified by a placard enumerating all the "armies" in Great Britain--the Ulster Volunteer army, Miss Sylvia Pankhurst's army, Mr. Devlin's army, etc. The spirit of the picture is ironical, but it throws a light on Bernhardi's reading of the signs of the times in Ireland. In July Mr. Asquith is seen endeavouring to cajole the Orange Girl, who looks at him sullenly; and another picture in the same number shows Sir Edward Carson arming "Loyal Ulster." In October the possibility of a settlement on the basis of the exclusion of North-East Ulster is indicated in "Second Thoughts"; Mr. John Redmond is shown driving four pigs--Connaught, Munster, Leinster and S.W. Ulster--through the gate of Home Rule. N.E. Ulster is heading in a contrary direction, and Mr. Redmond wonders whether he should "lave this contrairy little divil loose the way he'd come back by himself aftherwards." A month or so later Mr. Birrell warns Carson not to tempt him or "on my honour and conscience I shall have to put you through this." _This_ being the "ever open door" of a prison with the inscription "All fear abandon ye who enter here"--a reference to the speedy release of Mr. Jim Larkin, the turbulent leader of the Dublin strike. Here the satire is aimed at the futile leniency of the Chief Secretary to all disturbers of the peace. Three weeks later, alluding to the prohibited importation of arms into Ireland, _Punch_ ridicules the inconsistency of Sir Edward Carson, who, armed himself to the teeth, is warning Customs Officer Birrell to search Mr. Redmond, a harmless-looking passenger, carrying a small dispatch-case: "That's just the sort of bag he'd have a couple of howitzers concealed in." Mr. Bonar Law's support of Sir Edward Carson's campaign is ingeniously shown in "The New Brunswicker"--after Millais' well-known picture--deserting the Tariff Reform lady, "but only for a time," in order to go to the Ulster Wars.

The last cartoon of the year, "The Third Stage," exhibits the main legislative preoccupations of the year in the form of a coach with the three Bills--Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment and Plural Voting--seated abreast under the hood of the Parliament Act with 1914 as postilion. _Punch's_ view was that the electorate as a whole were somewhat weary of the legislative activities of the Government. In 1912 he had represented John Bull as Oliver asking not for more but less; in the summer of 1913 he showed John Bull disappointed with Mr. Lloyd George's "rare and refreshing fruit" on the ground that it contained "too many pips," _à propos_ of Mr. Asquith's promise to amend the Insurance Act. The conscientious M.P., in the cartoon of a few weeks later, who presents himself at the Pay Office expressing his fear that he won't "really be earning his salary this year with no autumn session," is bluntly told by Paymaster Bull, "sick with legislation," not to worry about that. "You go and take a nice long holiday; the country needs it." There were other causes of weariness besides excessive legislation. The Marconi scandal was an incubus which lay heavily on the Government throughout the year. In the early stages of the inquiry, _Punch_ showed Rumour presenting her season-ticket, and disgusted at being denied admittance, as the Committee were about to "get to business." The amount of space devoted to the question in the Press is satirized by the announcement of the forthcoming publication of "The Marconi Affair in a Nut-shell," by Messrs. Garvin and Maxse, in 968 pages. When the Report appeared, _Punch_ thought the whitewash had been laid on too thick:

"More Whitewash!" said the Falconer,[2] Doing the Party trick; "Throw it about in bucketfuls; Some of it's bound to stick." "Very poor art!" the public cried; "You've laid it on too thick!"

Even more hostile is the cartoon "Blameless Telegraphy," in which John Bull addresses Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Rufus Isaacs, dressed as telegraph boys with "Marconi, U.S.A.," on their caps: "My boys, you leave the court without a stain--except, perhaps, for the whitewash." There was no whitewash in Lord Robert Cecil's minority Report; and the reverberations of the Marconi affair did not die down for many months, nor did _Punch_ wish that they should--witness his ironic cartoon of the Master of Elibank, luxuriating in a hammock in tropical Bogota, and expressing his keen disappointment that the inquiry had been closed.

[Footnote 2: Mr. James Falconer, the Liberal Member for Forfarshire, 1909-1918.]

_A propos_ of the theft of the "Mona Lisa" portrait from the Louvre, _Punch_ portrayed Mr. Asquith as "Il Giocondo" with an inscrutable and enigmatic smile. The internal embarrassments of the Cabinet certainly must have taxed the smiling capacities of the Premier to the utmost, to say nothing of Ulster and the militant suffragists. Yet when Dame Curzon is depicted tempting Master Asquith to take a joy-ride on a donkey labelled "General Election," Master Asquith replies that he is not taking any violent exercise this season, but thinks of waiting till 1915. There are not a few people who in the interests of the country are very thankful that the Liberals were still in power and not in opposition when the great decision had to be made a year later. There is a touch of unconscious and complacent prophecy in the picture of Britannia girding on "The Wings of Victory"--the new rage in Paris and Berlin--"because she can't afford to be out of it." It took us four years to make good the title, but it was done in the end.

The gap that separates us from pre-war years is illustrated in many curious ways. For example, in March, 1913, _Punch_ has a picture of a lady asking to have a cheque for £15 cashed all in gold "if you've got it." In those golden days of peace such a question was simply a mark of feminine ignorance; two years later it would have argued insanity.

[Sidenote: _England's Detachment_]

In the seven months that remained before the outbreak of the Great War you may search the pages of _Punch_ in vain for evidences of a provocative attitude towards Germany or of anything indicating national preparedness for the conflict. _Punch_, as a mirror of middle-class public opinion, faithfully reflected our domestic troubles and preoccupations. International politics are conspicuously absent from the Almanack of Christmas, 1913, except for a picture of Sir Edward Grey producing doves from a hat labelled Balkan Crisis, and portraits of Ferdinand of Bulgaria, the Sultan of Turkey and the King of Montenegro, offering tickets of admission to the Concert of Europe. Comment, criticism and satire are monopolized by Ulster, labour troubles, Marconi and oil scandals, the dancing mania, social extravagance and the spread of the cinema habit. The first cartoon of the New Year of 1914 is devoted to Mr. Lloyd George's land campaign; there is nothing aggressive in the picture of Mr. Churchill as a sailor surrounded by a Tory chorus singing, "You've made me love you; I didn't want to do it"--_à propos_ of the Navy Estimates; nothing provocative in "The Price of Admiralty," where Britannia, outside a door marked "Cabinet Council (Private and Controversial)," is seen waiting to know whether she is to lay down the ships she wants, on which _Mr. Punch_ adds "or lay down your trident." No serious misgiving is aroused by Turkey's purchase of a _Dreadnought_, and _Punch's_ comment on General Leonard Wood's pessimistic report on the practically unarmed condition of the U.S.A. army, if not exactly unsympathetic, is light-hearted and detached.

Home Rule and the attitude of Ulster diverted the eyes of England from the Continent. The Zabern incident did not escape _Punch's_ eye, but his comment, which suggests an imaginary interchange of garrisons between Germany and England, was too fantastic to be really pointed; and the announcement that Sir Edward Grey would accompany the King on his visit to Paris in April passes with a brief compliment to the Foreign Minister on his well-earned little treat.

There is an excellent burlesque account of a Cabinet Council in February, illustrating the temperaments of the different Ministers--the imperturbable and irrepressible equanimity of Mr. Lloyd George; the inarticulate disapproval of Lord Crewe; the egotism of Mr. Burns; the bland ignorance of Mr. Birrell. But foreign politics are not once mentioned: the Premier and his Cabinet are chiefly concerned with discussing their detractors in the Press and the Ulster problem. Incidentally Mr. Lloyd George scouts the proposal to revive the Heptarchy because it was a Saxon, not a Celtic institution. This is all irresponsible burlesque, but it was highly intelligent burlesque. In Parliament, members were not worrying about the German menace. They were more interested in Lord Murray's statement about the Marconi business, the debate on contributions to the Party funds and the distribution of honours; above all, in the Government's plan of amending Home Rule so as to conciliate Ulster. _Punch_, still inclined to be critical of the Northern loyalists, begs Miss Ulster not to turn up her nose at the pretty bouquet of concessions offered her by the Premier, but to have a good look at them first.

The Government certainly did not expect war, but whether by lucky chance or in a moment of wise prevision, a momentous decision was taken by the Admiralty in March:--

"The Admiralty has decided that, in the place of the grand manoeuvres this year, there shall be a surprise mobilisation. Last year's manoeuvres were, we believe, something of a fiasco, but to ensure the success of the surprise mobilisation, five months' previous notice is given."

_Punch's_ comment, at any rate, is free from any bellicose imputations. He, at least, had no inkling of the larger surprise which was to be sprung on us from another quarter. The Supplementary Naval Estimates, raising the total to 48 millions, and providing for reserves of oil fuel and the very modest new aircraft programme, were passed by a six to one majority. Labour members registered a protest, but nothing was said about Germany. Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment and Plural Voting still were the burning questions of the hour. As for Home Rule, it is strange to read how, in the debate on the second reading in March, Mr. William O'Brien referred to Ulster as "the new 'Orange' Free State, which has just received official recognition." _Punch_ records the phrase; also the vote of censure brought against Mr. Lloyd George "on grounds of repeated inaccuracy, particularly on account of his ineradicable tendency to speak disrespectfully of dukes"--a vote negatived by none too large a majority. Mr. Balfour meanwhile was disporting himself at Nice, and his absence was much commented on: it was not exactly a case of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning; but _Punch_, under the heading of "Mr. Balfour's Mixed Double Life," made fair game of his giving up to lawn tennis what was meant for his country. Another conspicuous absentee from England at this period of storm and stress was Lord Northcliffe. A notice appeared in the _Daily Mail_ in the following words:--

Lord Northcliffe rarely sees and never reads a letter, being mainly nowadays engaged in golf and travel.

_Punch_ treated the announcement with a sad want of respect, as who should say, "_O si sic semper!_" The most curious thing in _Punch's_ pages for March is the picture of the Recruiting Sergeant addressing a rather loutish-looking youth: "Now I can tell character when I see it, so mark my words. If you join now, you'll be a swankin' general in five years." Thus not for the first time did _Punch_, writing as a jester, prove an unconscious prophet.

[Sidenote: _An Unconscious Prophecy_]

Credit is assigned to Mr. Churchill for "calling in a new element to redress the balance of the old"--Neptune emerging from the deep to gaze at his new allies, the aeroplane and airship. But attention was abruptly switched off from the Admiralty to the War Office by the troubles at the Curragh Camp, the threatened resignations of General Gough and other officers as a protest against the coercion of Ulster, and by the blunder and resignation of Mr. Seely. _Punch_ applauded the spirit both of Ulster and the Army: in his cartoon, "Many a slip," he showed Mr. Asquith, while offering the cup to Mr. John Redmond, confronted by a hand with a sword marked "Army Resignations." _Punch_ recognized the promptitude with which Mr. Asquith came to the rescue by doubling the functions of Premier and War Minister, but was less benevolent in his gloss on the comment of a faithful supporter who declared that "the best we can do is to keep our eye on Mr. Asquith":--

BALLAD OF THE WATCHFUL EYE

O keep your eye on David, The demigod of Wales, Before whose furious onset Dukes turn their timid tails; Whom Merioneth mystics Praise in delirious distichs And, matched with whose statistics, Munchausen's glory pales.

O keep your eye on Winston, And mind you keep it tight, For nearly every Saturday You'll find he takes to flight; Now eloquent and thrilling, Now simply cheap or filling, And now bent on distilling The purest Party spite.

O keep your eye on Haldane, Ex-Minister of War, The sleek and supple-minded And suave Lord Chancellor; Whose brain, so keen and subtle, Moves swifter than a shuttle, Obscuring, like the cuttle, Things that were plain before.

* * *

O keep your eye on Birrell, So wholly free from guile, Conspicuous by his absence From Erin's peaceful isle; Who wakes from floor to rafter The House to heedless laughter, Careless of what comes after Can he but raise a smile.

O keep your eye on Masterman, Dear David's henchman leal, Whose piety and "uplift" Makes ribald Tories squeal; In every public function Displaying the conjunction Of perfect moral unction With perfect Party zeal.

Last, keep your eye on Asquith And he will bring you through, No matter what his colleagues May say or think or do; For in the dirtiest weather, He moulted not a feather And safely kept together His variegated crew.

_Mr. Punch_ certainly kept his eye on Lord Haldane to good purpose--witness the stanzas "To the Cabinet (suggested by a recent doctoring of Hansard)":--

The judgment of the People's "Yea" or "Nay" Wherefore should virtuous men like _you_ shun? You are--or so you confidently say-- Prepared for Dissolution.

Then snatch a hint from Haldane's little fake, Who glanced with eye alert and beady at His speech in proof, and, for appearance' sake Added the word "_immediate_."

To persons with short memories it may be needful to recall the fact that, when challenged in the House of Lords, Lord Haldane had said on March 23:--

"No orders were issued, no orders are likely to be issued, and no orders will be issued for the coercion of Ulster."

But when his speech was printed in the weekly record, it was found that the word "immediate" had been added before "coercion," thus showing that self-protection is often the most dangerous and damaging policy.

[Sidenote: _Ulster and the "Plot"_]

_Punch_ had applauded the spirit of Ulster, but he did not approve of the uncompromising policy of her leader. In "The Fight for the Banner," Mr. John Redmond and Sir Edward Carson are shown pulling the flag of "Peace for Ireland" asunder, while John Bull remarks: "This tires me. Why can't you carry it between you? Neither of you can carry it alone." By way of contrast, one may note the cartoon "After Ten Years," with France and Britannia clasping hands in celebration of the solidity and endurance of the _Entente_.

"For the third time in the course of three successive Sessions the Home Rule Bill passes the second reading stage." So _Punch_ wrote of the "business done" in Parliament on April 6. But the arbitrament of the vote did not allay the suspicions of the Opposition. April and May were given over to acrimonious discussions of the alleged "Plot" by the Government to overawe Ulster by armed occupation. _Punch_ admired the imperturbability of Mr. Asquith, who is shown combining in his own person the _rôles_ of prisoner, judge and jury. Mr. Austen Chamberlain demanded a judicial inquiry into the "Plot," but was beaten by eighty votes in a House of 608 members. Simultaneously _Punch_ depicted Sir Edward Carson as the Ulster King-at-Arms, armed and defiant, and declared through the mouth of John Bull that "he was not going to have Civil War to please either Radical Extremists or Tory Die-Hards." Simultaneously, too, _Punch_ printed a most eulogistic notice of Mr. Norman Angell's _Foundations of International Policy_, in which the reviewer declared that if he were a politician he would "move for a further supplementary Naval Estimate to expend the price of a _Dreadnought_ in distributing this fighting pacificist's book to all journalists, attachés, clergymen, bazaar-openers, club oracles, professors, headmasters, and other obvious people in both Germany and Britain."

Mr. Lloyd George's last Budget topped two hundred millions, but showed a small surplus. _Punch_ portrayed the income-tax payer as an old cow complaining that "it isn't milking, it's murder." The enhancement of the death duties _Punch_ regarded as a raising of the fares to Styx, which would cost the Plutocratic Shades more.

The debates on the Home Rule Bill suggested to _Punch_ a contrast between 1906 and 1914, the efforts of the Liberals to improve the situation having only resulted in turmoil, discontent and bitter recrimination. The third reading was carried on May 25 by 351 votes to 274, Mr. William O'Brien having cheerfully remarked that the Bill, if it became an Act, would be born with a rope round its neck. Heated discussions took place over the refusal of the Government to disclose the details of the Amending Bill. The Speaker had invited Mr. Asquith to supply further particulars, as the Opposition had insistently demanded, but, according to _Punch_, the Premier's luminous and courteous response did not add a syllable to the information already vouchsafed, whereupon Mr. Bonar Law had asked the Speaker to "let the curtain be rung down on a contemptible farce." The third reading of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill had been carried a week earlier; the Plural Voters Bill passed the same stage three weeks later. For the rest, the main topics which engaged attention in the House were gun-running, Suffragist outrages, and the latest amendment of the much-amended Insurance Act. "Scenes" were not infrequent, and _Punch_ deplores the "pot-house manners" displayed by members on both sides. The emergence of the National Volunteers, a counterblast to the force enrolled by the Ulster Loyalists, added to the general disquiet, but there were no public signs of any general awakening to the impending catastrophe. Sir Percy Scott's letter on the submarine menace created a considerable stir, but _Punch_, like the majority of his readers, refused to treat it seriously. The efficiency of the Territorial Army as seen from the inside is illustrated in the _cri de coeur_ ascribed to one of the rank and file during the course of the manoeuvres: "Thank 'Evin we've got a Nivy!" There is a jocular reference in mid-June to the toast "Der Tag" in German war vessels, and an unconscious prophecy in the warning of an old Lancashire lady to a young friend intending to go by an excursion to London: "Doan't thee goà to London: thee stop in owd England." On June 10, it may be added, a "Peace Centenary Costume Ball" was held in the Albert Hall in honour of the 100th anniversary of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and the lady who represented Britannia carried a palm branch instead of the customary trident.

[Sidenote: _Midsummer Madness_]

With the opening of July the London season was in full fling; the pleasure-hunt had never been so unbridled; midsummer madness was at its height. Society, bejewelled as never before, was given up to the cult of the Russian Ballet and the worship of Chaliapine. _Punch's_ "Holiday Pages" make strange reading, emphasizing, as they do, the passion for amusement, freak and fancy costumes, the cinema craze and "full joy days." _Punch's_ staff did not escape the infection, and one of them writes from a golfing resort:--

"_Carpe diem_"--yes, that's the motto.

"Work be jiggered!" and likewise "What ho!"

_I'm not going back till I've jolly well got to!_

Strauss's _Joseph_ had been produced in June by the Russian Ballet, and lent point to "Blanche's" letter on the "Friendship Fête," an imaginary entertainment organized "to celebrate our not having had any scraps with any foreign country for some little time" by the performance of a Kamschatkan opera-ballet. The satire is effective, but it is largely unconscious or subconscious. The Smith-Carpentier fight made a greater impression on the man in the street than the murder of the Crown Prince Ferdinand at Sarajevo.

The death of Mr. Chamberlain, who, after long enforced absence from the political arena, passed away on July 2, hushed political strife for a moment. All sections were united in deploring the tragic eclipse of a great fighter and a great man who, in _Punch's_ words, "loved his Party well but loved his country more."

Turkey appears early in the month as unready to fight Greece before the autumn, "when the ships come home." The cartoons until the last issue in July deal with the Budget and Home Rule. Mr. Asquith on July 13 announced the winding up of business; there would be no autumn session, but Parliament would reassemble early in the winter. On July 29 the chief cartoon, "What of the Dawn?" deals with the anxieties of Ireland, and the most important event chronicled in the "Essence of Parliament" was the Premier's announcement that, on the initiative of the King, a conference on the Ulster question between the British and Irish parties had been arranged to meet at Buckingham Palace.

[Sidenote: _On the Eve_]

_Punch_ was not wholly blind to the peril of Serbia. In his second cartoon, "The Power Behind," we see the Austrian Eagle threatening the little Serbian bird and suspecting that someone must be backing him--the someone being the Russian Bear hidden behind a rock. The immediate situation was not misread, but _Punch_, in his own words, was in an "irrepressible holiday mood," and little thought that on the day on which his cartoon appeared Austria would declare war on Serbia. Yet even this warning did not bring home to _Punch_ the imminence of the "Grand Smash." The makers of wars have no consideration for the producers of weekly papers. The issue, dated August 5, had gone to press before Germany declared war on Russia and France, and was published only a few hours before Great Britain was at war with Germany. The cartoon of the week shows Britannia appealing to Peace to do the best for her in _Ireland_, having done her best for Peace in Europe.[3] The "Essence of Parliament" is more concerned with gun-running at Clontarf than the prospect of a European convulsion, and the verses on the "Logic of Ententes: composed on what looks like the eve of a general European War," and intended to reflect the views of an average British patriot, are governed by the feeling that the whole thing is "an awful bore." Britons "never can be Slavs," and the last couplet runs thus:--

"Well, if I must, I shall have to fight For the love of a bounding Balkanite."

An even more detached and ironical note is sounded in the fantasy headed "Armageddon"--a satire on Porkins, a blatant young golfing "nut" who thinks that England needs a war to cure her of flabbiness. The granting of his desire is traced to the cynical intervention of the Gods of Olympus in promoting a little scrap over a love affair in an obscure corner of the Balkans:--

And when a year later the hundred-thousandth English mother woke up to read that her boy had been shot, I am afraid she shed foolish tears and thought that the world had come to an end. Poor shortsighted creature! She didn't realize that Porkins, who had marched round the links in ninety-six the day before, was now thoroughly braced up.

[Footnote 3: The present writer was at Bayreuth in the week before the War. After the declaration of war on Serbia by Austria and in view of its inevitable consequences, the Germans, in conversation and in their Press, were unanimous in "banking on" the neutrality of England on the ground of her domestic embarrassments in Ulster and the friendliness of the Liberal Government.]

These two utterances may show that _Punch_ had failed in reading the signs of the times, and did not render justice to the youth of the country. I prefer to regard them as proofs that _Punch_, like the vast majority of his fellow-countrymen, neither expected nor desired war.

CAPITAL AND LABOUR

The fervid Radicalism of _Punch's_ earlier years had always been tempered by a distrust of "agitators" and socialistic experiments. It is impossible to deny that, in the period under review in this volume, this distrust gained in force if not in vehemence. There is nothing so bitter as the sketch of the delegate which appeared in the days of Douglas Jerrold (see Vol. I, p. 50), but the general attitude of the paper to the working man is decidedly less sympathetic. This change can be illustrated negatively as well as positively; less space is devoted to "the people," and more to "Society"--though in many cases it is suburban society--and to the middle classes. The references to Labour exhibit an increasing tendency to criticize and denounce trade union tyranny, socialistic legislation, the improvidence and extravagance of highly paid workmen, and "ergophobia" (as _Punch_ academically calls work-shyness)--a habit which he describes as early as 1892 as "the new employment of being 'unemployed.'" Yet if _Punch_ was increasingly critical of Labour--organized Labour--he was very far from being a thick-and-thin champion of Capital. Greedy employers and directors are never spared. The agricultural depression in 1892 furnishes him with the occasion for a vigorous onslaught on railway rates. Agriculture is shown as a female figure, bound hand and foot by Foreign Competition, lying prostrate on the track and about to be run down by an engine labelled Railway Rates. In 1895 the verses and cartoon inspired by lock-outs on the Clyde are equally severe on the employers. _Punch_ condemns the action of "crass and unpatriotic capital," and shows Britannia rebuking the shipbuilders who are playing into Germany's hands by assisting the growth of her navy. In 1896, under the heading of "The Millions to the Millionaires," _Punch_ takes for his text an actual appeal made by the working men of Walworth on the death of Baron Hirsch, _à propos_ of his munificent bequests to _his_ countrymen, and holds up the example for imitation. The continuance of the habit of "slumming," out of curiosity rather than good will, prompts in 1897 a satirical inversion of the organized visits to the East End. _Punch's_ "West End Exploration Agency, Ltd.," provided "Night Tours through Belgravia and Lightest London" with the purpose of proving "the depressing monotony and triviality of the existence to which Fashion's merciless decree condemns her countless thousands of white slaves."

The debate in the Commons in the same year over Lord Penrhyn's dispute with his quarrymen found _Punch_ decidedly hostile to the young Tory lions who supported that inflexible peer. When in 1900 the Coal Mining Companies in Fife declared a dividend of 50 per cent., and the price of coal was still rising, _Punch_ castigated the greed of the owners. In 1907 the miners are exempted from any share of the responsibility for the high cost of coal. The triple Cerberus who dominates the situation is made up of the colliery owner, the coal merchant and the railway company. But as the price this joint monster exacted was only 30s. a ton--exorbitant for the time, no doubt--it is hard for this generation to share _Punch's_ sympathy for the consumer. As late as 1912, when the coal crisis again became acute, _Punch_, though resenting the increased resort to the strike weapon, represents the merchant profiteer as in clover while Britannia is the victim of his avarice.

[Sidenote: _Underpaid Women Workers_]

On behalf of _unorganized_ labour, when it was unfairly exploited by the employer, _Punch_ continued to lift up his voice in the old strain. In 1893 the hard case of the shopgirls, slave-driven by exacting masters, always standing, too tired at the end of the week to profit by Sunday, prompts him to a plea for a true Day of Rest. The verses, like the "Cry of the City Clerk," are vitiated by their sentimentality. There is more vigour in the lines "'Arriet on Labour" in the same year, which show that the new type of woman was not confined to the upper classes. 'Arriet is a workgirl who works hard, loves her freedom and nights off, has no respect for spouting Labour candidates, and no envy of married drudges:--

Labour? Well, yus, the best of hus must work; yer carn't git quit of it; And you and me, Poll, like the rest, must do our little bit of it. But oh, I loves my _freedom_, Poll, my hevenings hoff is 'eaven; But wives and slavies ain't allowed even one day in seven.

Jigger the men! Sam spouts and shouts about the 'Onest Worker. That always means a Man, of course--_he's a smart Man, the shirker. But when a Man lives upon his wife, and skulks around his diggings, Who is the "'Onest Worker" then? Yours truly,_

'ARRIET 'IGGINGS.

Another "hard case" exposed by _Punch_ in the following year was that of the rural schoolmistress, contrasted unfavourably with Crabbe's version. _Punch_ took his cue from a paper read by Dr. Macnamara at a meeting of the N.U.T. and drew a lamentable picture of the weary, overworked and miserably underpaid teacher, "passing _poor_ on £40 a year." The picture was obviously drawn at second-hand, but the line in which the schoolmistress is described as "a lonely, tired, certificated slave" was an excellent summary of a real hardship. Women workers were not only slave-driven by employers and underpaid by the State; they were also handicapped by the competition of their sisters who only worked for pocket-money. This, at least, was the burden of a complaint made by an old-fashioned woman in the _Daily Chronicle_ in the autumn of 1895:--

"In every branch of work we see well-to-do women crowding into the ranks of competition, in consequence of which wages are lowered, and women who really want work are left to starve."

This letter inspired _Punch_ to deliver a fierce homily in verse on the wickedness of well-to-do women "playing at work," to the detriment of their poor sisters. As a set-off, however, we may note that in 1897 _Punch_ condemns mistresses for exploiting "Lady servants," getting them to do double the work for half the ordinary wages because of their inability to stand up for themselves. Sweated women workers were still to be found in the tailoring trade, and _Punch_ did well in 1896 to retell in his columns the story of the tailoress, Mary Ould of Peckham, as unfolded before the Lambeth County Court. She had to buy her own materials and pay her fare for fetching and carrying work; she toiled till 10 p.m. from Saturday till Thursday and, at 3/4d. per coat, earned 3s. The pillorying of these abuses did credit to _Punch's_ humanity, but as they were nearly always chosen from unorganized trades, they became increasingly difficult to reconcile with his increasing hostility to trade union organization, and his distrust of legislation expressly designed to satisfy the demands of Labour. Philanthropic efforts to relieve the squalor of the home life of the poor were another matter. To the appeals of the Children's Country Holiday Fund _Punch_ always lent a ready ear, and when Canon Barnett arranged an exhibition of Watts's pictures in Whitechapel, _Punch_ vigorously applauded the scheme. Pictures were as good as sermons, and better than many:--

Where Whitechapel's darkness the weary eyes of the dreary worker dims, It may be found that Watts's pictures do better than Watts's hymns.

[Sidenote: _The Children's Champion_]

At the same time the Philistine attitude of the East End matron is not overlooked in Phil May's picture. Much depended on the spirit in which this campaign of enlightenment was conducted, and _Punch_ continued to rebuke and satirize the lack of sympathy and comprehension shown by the fashionable "slummer." He had "no use" for people like "Mrs. Slumley Smirk," the District Visitor, who asked to be warned if any illness was about, as then she wouldn't wish to come near; and he was even more satirical at the expense of Socialism as conceived by certain members of the aristocracy--_vide_ the imaginary interview with "Lady Yorick" in 1905--who sought to have it both ways, and, as I notice elsewhere, represented a new and inverted type of snobbery.

For the scandal of the insurance of poor children's lives he held not the parents, but the "Bogus Insurance sneak," mainly responsible. He is at least half in sympathy with the soliloquy in St. James's Park of the Socialist loafer who deprecates the amount of food wasted on the ducks and swans. He applauds the revival of Folk Dancing in 1903; in 1905 there is a long and charming sketch of an old Cambridge bedmaker who had recently died at an advanced age; and in the following year _Punch_ published a delightful imaginary description of a socialistic experiment, by which poor children were sent on visits to "upper-class" families, and treated as guests and equals, to the mutual profit of both classes. The scheme is suggested as an improvement on bazaars and similar activities. On the other hand, _Punch_ indulges in ironic comment on the result of well-meant efforts to teach poor children to "think imperially"--a subject on which he spoke with more than one voice. In an Empire Day Essay a London school-child wrote in 1908:--

"There are a lot of Empires like Chinese Empire, Hackney Empire, Stratford Empire, and Russian Empire. Hackney Empire is different to ours because they sing there, and ours is places."

[Sidenote: _The Boy Scout Movement_]

The best-inspired and most fruitful of all movements for the uplifting of the children of the people which belongs to this period was that of the Boy Scouts. It was entirely independent of State or official encouragement, and sprang from the ingenious brain of one man, General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, and _Punch_, as an Individualist, was not inclined to think worse of it on that account. As a matter of fact, he greeted the Boy Scouts with the utmost cordiality from the very outset. In 1909 his cartoon on "Our Youngest Line of Defence" shows the Boy Scout reassuring Mrs. Britannia: "Fear not, Grandma; no danger can befall you now. Remember _I_ am with you." Later on in 1911 came the delightful cartoon of the Boy Scouts capturing Windsor Castle, and, on the very eve of the war, in _Punch's_ Holiday Pages we encounter the late Mr. F. H. Townsend's admirable picture of our "dear old friend the foreign spy (cunningly disguised as a golfer) visiting our youngest suburb on a Saturday afternoon in quest of further evidence of our lethargy, general decadence and falling birth-rate." As a result of observing the activity and numbers of the Boy Scouts, he gets a serious shock, and at once telegraphs to his Commander-in-Chief "urging that the conquest of the British Isles be undertaken before the present generation is many years older." This oblique and imaginative tribute was happily conceived and well deserved. The spirit of the Boy Scout movement was at least a contributory factor in helping us to win the War. What was even more important was the conversion of a great many Pacificists from their mistrust of the alleged "militarism" of the movement, and their recognition of its essential value as an instrument in fostering self-respect, truthfulness, altruistic kindliness and cleanliness of mind and body.

[Sidenote: _Strikes and Unemployment_]

This record--and it is by no means exhaustive--of _Punch's_ humanitarian activities must not blind us to the fact that throughout these years the principal object of his sympathy and compassion was not the working man but the middle-class tax-and rate-payer. In 1893 _Punch_ depicts him bound to a post and in danger of being drowned by the rising tide of rates--L.C.C., Asylums, Libraries, Baths, Vestries. _Punch_, as we have seen, did not acquit the coal owners and coal merchants of rapacity, but he was not any more sympathetic to the miners--witness the following dialogue printed in the same year:--

THE STRIKER'S VADE MECUM

_Question._ You think it is a good thing to strike?

_Answer._ Yes, when there is no other remedy.

_Q._ Is there ever any other remedy?

_A._ Never. At least, so say the secretaries.

_Q._ Then you stand by the opinions of the officials?

_A._ Why, of course; because they are paid to give them.

_Q._ But have not the employers any interests?

_A._ Lots, but they are not worthy the working man's consideration.

_Q._ But are not their interests yours?

_A._ Yes, and that is the way we guard over them.

_Q._ But surely it is the case of cutting off the nose to spite the mouth?

_A._ And why not, if the mouth is too well fed.

_Q._ But are not arguments better than bludgeons?

_A._ No. And bludgeons are less effective than revolvers.

_Q._ But may not the use of revolvers produce the military?

_A._ Yes, but they can do nothing without a magistrate reading the Riot Act.

_Q._ But, the Riot Act read, does not the work become serious?

_A._ Probably. But at any rate the work is lawful, because unremunerative.

_Q._ But how are the wives and children of strikers to live if their husbands and fathers earn no wages?

_A._ On strike money.

_Q._ But does all the strike money go to the maintenance of the hearth and home?

_A._ Of course not, for a good share of it is wanted for the baccy-shop and the public-house.

_Q._ But if strikes continue will not trade suffer?

_A._ Very likely, but trade represents the masters.

_Q._ And if trade is driven away from the country, will it come back?

_A._ Most likely not, but that is a matter for the future.

_Q._ But is not the future of equal importance to the present?

_A._ Not at all, for a day's thought is quite enough for a day's work.

_Q._ Then a strike represents either nothing or idleness?

_A._ Yes, bludgeons or beer.

_Q._ And what is the value of reason?

_A._ Why, something less than smoke.

Simultaneously _Punch_ published a cartoon (rather prematurely) in which Mars, expressing his readiness to arbitrate, appeals to Vulcan to do the same. Lord Rosebery's successful intervention as a mediator in the coal strike in December, 1893, is handsomely acknowledged in the cartoon in which he figures as the "G.O.M.'s handy boy." Lord Rosebery was still at the height of his personal popularity; it was not until 1905 that _Punch_ described him as "unemployable." Unemployment had reached formidable dimensions, and then, as now, proved serviceable material to the political agitator. Mr. Asquith, as Home Secretary, had allowed political meetings in Trafalgar Square "so long as the proceedings were orderly," and _Punch_ represented the disappointment of the extremists at having the ground cut from under their feet by this condition. A year later _Punch_ depicted the Trafalgar Square of the future, with anarchy rampant in every corner, and early in 1894 the verses "The Devil's Latest Walk (after Coleridge and Southey)," fiercely attacking Socialist agitators as animated by sheer malice, are accompanied by a picture of a fiendish figure with horns and tail.

[Sidenote: _Gambling and Improvidence_]

It was about this time that, as we read in the _Annual Register_, "a large body of the unemployed attended service at St. Paul's Cathedral in response to an invitation from Canon Scott Holland, whose sermon was frequently interrupted by the applause of those present." _Punch_, in his then mood, would have probably explained this episode on the principle of "the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be." _Punch_ was no admirer of the art of Mr. George Moore, but he had paid him reluctant homage as a moralist in 1894, under the head of "All the Winners":--

Boycotted or not boycotted, if _Esther Waters_ calls general and effectual attention to the growth of gambling, which is the real "curse of the country" in these days, it will do more good than all the _Dodos_ and _Marcellas_ and _Barabbases_ and _Heavenly Twins_ in all the Libraries in the land.

It was in the same spirit that a few years later _Punch_ applauded the idea of establishing a Bureau of Common-sense to combat the extravagance and improvidence of the working classes. The suggestion was made by Judge Emden, the well-known County Court Judge, in dealing with the case of a man who, on wages of from 25s. to 30s. a week, committed himself to a twenty-five-guinea piano on the hire-purchase system.

"Agricultural Depression" bulks largely in _Punch's_ pages in the 'nineties, but it is the farmer, not the farm labourer, who is singled out for commiseration. In 1893 he is shown as Buridan's Ass between two piles of sapless chaff--Tory and Liberal--overburdened by the triple load of Rents, Rates and Foreign Competition:--

What choice between the chaff of arid Rad And that of equally dry-and-dusty Tory? Chaplin would feed you on preposterous fad, And Gardner[4] on--postponement! The old story! While the grass grows the horse may starve. Poor ass! Party would bring you to a similar pass!

[Footnote 4: Mr. Herbert Gardner, President of the Board of Agriculture, afterwards Lord Burghclere.]

In the summer of 1894 the verses "A Good Time Coming" foreshadow the end of the agricultural depression, but a few weeks later the farmer was bitterly disappointed. His crops had been plentiful, but the plenty had brought down the price of wheat in some cases to 16s. and 19s. a quarter. In short, there had been a golden harvest, but he couldn't get gold for it. Let it be noted, in parenthesis, that if _Punch_ espoused the cause of the farmer, he was not wholly wedded to the old rural _régime_ of the Squire and the Parson. In 1894 there is a humorously ironic lament by a lover of the "Good Old Times" in the form of a new version of "The Village Blacksmith," suggested by the actual return of a blacksmith to one of the new parish councils at the head of the poll. When the Conservatives came back to power in 1895, Lord Salisbury, in a new fable of Hercules and the Farmer, is represented as adroitly ascribing agricultural depression to Providence, and exculpating the Government which had done its best; but the farmer is unconvinced by this pious explanation. The remedy which the Government sought to apply in the Agricultural Land Rating Bill of 1896 failed to satisfy _Punch_. Mr. Chaplin is seen, in an adaptation of Æsop, shifting the burden of rural rates from the horse (country) to the ass (town). But the latter was _Punch's_ special _protégé_, and the verses in May express accurately enough the cry of the poor townsman, the rate-crushed cockney, protesting against Mr. Chaplin's remedy when the income-tax was already 8d. in the pound! The income-tax payer this time is the patient ass, hoping that some at least of the surplus of six millions may be devoted to the relief of his gigantic burden. To return to Agriculture, a sidelight is thrown on the shortage of farm hands in 1901, in the picture of an elderly farmer rebuking a very small boy for slacking, only to be met by the retort "Chaps is scarce." The parallel to the Great War is obvious, but one would hardly have thought that the Boer war was on a large enough scale to affect the labour market in this way. In 1903 voluntary labour bureaus were started, but the results were disappointing, and _Punch_ quotes an account of an experiment in Wiltshire. Fifteen men had been sent down from London; two returned in three days "because it rained"; and twelve more were back in a fortnight. Our increasing reliance on imported food had already prompted _Punch_ to indulge in a forecast of the Stores of the Future, at which Tierra-del-Fuego Devonshire cream and similar products are offered for sale because it had become impossible to get any home-grown produce. The exodus from the land to the cities was already in full swing, and we find _Punch_ as early as 1896 commending a clergyman who had started dancing classes in his village near Stroud as a counter-attraction to the lure of the towns. In this context it is worthy of note that in 1900 _Punch_ suggested that, as a result of socialistic legislation in Australia and elsewhere, and the growing struggle for the good things of life, no one was willing "to do the washing up." Yet prices and taxes were low enough to excite the envy of the harassed post-war householder. Eggs were advertised at 16 for 1s., but even this did not satisfy Phil May's broken-down tragedian in 1900, who exclaims as he reads the announcement in a shop-window: "Cheap! Ha! Ha! Why, in my time they _threw_ them at us."

[Sidenote: _Town v. Country_]

If all was not well with those who lived on or by the land, the town exodus of week-enders and the demand for small country residences had already created a cult of "rural felicity," the artificiality of which did not escape _Punch_ when he satirized in 1904 the platitudinous appreciation of Nature and country life distilled in the halfpenny Press. At the same time the drastic legislation dealing with the land problem introduced by the Liberals on their return to power in 1906 found little or no sympathy from _Punch_. The cross-currents revealed in the Unionist Party by the great Tariff Reform controversy, the resignation of Mr. Chamberlain, the secession of the Free Trade Ministers, and the inability of the plain person to cope with the transcendental fiscal dialectics of Mr. Balfour, had made it difficult for _Punch_, born and bred in the principles of Free Trade, to accord a whole-hearted support to the Unionist administration in its later years. There was, however, no perplexity in his attitude towards the land policy of their successors. At all their stages _Punch_ was hostile to the new "Lloyd Georgics." We may specially single out the cartoon in August, 1910, presenting a "study of a free-born Briton who, within the period usually allotted to his holidays, is required under threat of a penalty of £50 to answer a mass of obscure conundrums relating to land values, to facilitate his future taxation." The miseries of this inquisitorial process are further developed in an imaginary extract from a specimen return showing how some of the questions in the historic "Form IV" were to be answered. The sequel to this laborious and costly preliminary investigation falls outside the scope of this volume. Nor is it necessary to dwell at length on the movement, doubtless animated by a noble sympathy with the rural population, initiated by the _Daily Mail_ in 1911 on behalf of the revival of windmills and standard bread. The new-found interest in the yokel is satirized in the song of the "Merry Hind" (after Masefield's _Daffodil Fields_), and the cartoon "The Return of the Golden Age" in February, 1913, where Mr. Lloyd George is seen emptying a cornucopia of "rare and refreshing fruit" into the lap of the ecstatic farm labourer. Hodge was at last fairly in the limelight, for both parties had their land policy, and the opening of Mr. Lloyd George's Land Campaign in October is symbolized by a picture of him as an irresponsible music-hall comedian with "Songs Without Wurzels. No. 1, Land of Hope (as arranged by the Cabinet)" in his hand. Mr. Asquith is seen as his accompanist, waiting for the "patter" to finish, and observing, "This is the part that makes me nervous." But the _Pall Mall Gazette_, then edited by the great Mr. Garvin, declared in December that "whatever can be done to improve the lot of the agriculturist will have the Opposition's cordial support," and, on the strength of this assurance, the Premier's anxiety, in _Punch's_ view, was allayed. When Scout George reports to his chief "the enemy is on our side, sir," Scoutmaster Asquith replies, "Then let the battle begin."

[Sidenote: _Work, Wages, Pensions, and Doles_]

Farmers and farm labourers were regarded in _Punch's_ survey as not much more than pawns in the game of party politics. The claims of organized labour in the other great industries and the general tendency of legislation in their interests found him a more vigilant and a more hostile critic. Even so mild a measure as the Early Closing Bill of 1896--with the principle of which he had been in agreement in earlier years--excited his misgivings and prompted a forecast of increasingly intimate interference with the private life of householders: the outline of his "Household Regulations Act" contains provisions for hours of rising, cleaning, meals, bills and rent. It is a burlesque, but none the less indicates resentment of patriarchal State interference. Yet _Punch's_ general individualism admitted of exceptions. He noted the failure of the Voluntary Labour Bureau system, and was frivolously critical of the amateur attempt of a vicar to start Trust Houses to supersede Public Houses--a movement which later on came to stay and to achieve solid results. Here, however, allowance must be made for _Punch's_ inveterate distrust of temperance agitators. State interference on behalf of minorities did not always meet with _Punch's_ approval, and in 1898 we find him vehemently protesting against the recognition of "Conscientious Objectors" to vaccination. In a striking picture headed "The Triumph of De-Jenner-ation" he shows a grisly skeleton waving as his banner the Vaccination Bill, which _Punch_ calls "the Bill for the encouragement of Small Pox." But the burden of his criticisms of Labour is concerned with the artificial restriction of output, the conversion of the trade unions from an industrial to a political organization, and the increasing tendency of State intervention to encourage a reluctance either to work or save. The picture of Hyde Park on "Labour Day" in 1898 with the grass strewn with recumbent sleeping figures is, if I read it aright, designed less in compassion for the unemployed than as a satire on the unemployable. Wages were high in the bricklaying trade, but a shortage of labour was complained of; as for the skill required, a surveyor had written to the _Daily Telegraph_ stating that "any ordinary man could learn bricklaying in a fortnight," and _Punch_ ironically foreshadows the invasion of the trade by underpaid clerks, barristers, etc. Ruskin College--opened at Oxford in 1899--is described as "a College for Labour Leaders" by _Punch_, who rather unnecessarily prophesied that it might become the scene of "strikes"; but the friction which arose between those who conceived that the function of the college was purely educational, and those who wished to make it a school of political thought, went far to justify _Punch's_ misgivings. The plan of Old Age Pensions had long been in the air. The committee which reported in 1892 showed considerable divergence of opinion. Mr. Chamberlain, the chairman, condemned Mr. Charles Booth's proposal of the general endowment of old age as a gigantic system of outdoor relief for every one, good and bad, thrifty and unthrifty. The majority of the Royal Commission of 1893 were adverse to State pensions. The Rothschild Committee in 1896 found themselves unable to devise any satisfactory proposal. The Select Committee over which Mr. Chaplin presided put forward a scheme substantially on Mr. Charles Booth's lines, but in view of the cost and the hostility of the Government the matter rested till the passing of the Act by the Liberals in 1908. _Punch_, it may be noted, was no enthusiast for the scheme formulated by the Chaplin Committee; his cartoon of "Old Gaffer" and "Little Chappelin" (modelled on Southey's ballad) is undoubtedly hostile, and the accompanying verses end up on a cynical note when the "Old Gaffer" asks "Little Chappelin" what is the bag he is carrying, and is told:

"Only another dole," said he; "It _is_ a famous Ministry."

The Trade Union Congress at Plymouth in the same year censured Lord Mount Edgcumbe because, in throwing open his grounds to them, he had reserved the privacy of his lawn for a garden party. _Punch_ accordingly indulged in some sarcastic verses, supposed to be written by a Trade Unionist, and ironically applauding the action of Mr. Ben Tillett, who had distinguished himself by his attack on Lord Mount Edgcumbe. This was fair game enough, though to-day it would probably have been passed over in silence. _Punch_ no doubt was thinking of the saying that an Englishman's house is his castle; and hardly anticipated the time when an Englishman's or an English nobleman's castle would cease to be his home. To-day we read with an amused surprise _Punch's_ comment in 1900 on the introduction of an eight-hours' day for domestics in Australia, and his forecast of a similar state of affairs in England under a new Patriarchal Statute. Nor is there anything wildly extravagant in his ironical anticipation of the cook of the future demanding £100 wages, though unable to guarantee more in return than "chop one day and steak the next." The higher education of servants, according to _Punch_, was tending to produce a type which knew everything except the things which really mattered. He tells us in 1902 of a lady who was delighted to get a cook who could develop her photographs, and gives us, in the same year, an excellent study (after Gilbert) of the "Up-to-date Cook-General":--

I am the very pattern of an up-to-date cook-general, I've information vegetable, animal and mineral; I've passed the seventh standard, and I vary the monotony Of flirting with the butcher's boy by writing books on botany. I know the chemistry of zinc, tin, potash and ammonium; I practise on the fiddle, flute, piano and harmonium; I understand minutely the formation of an icicle, And in the season round the Park I like to ride my bicycle. I've studied Herbert Spencer and I've views on sociology, And as a mere _parergon_ I have taken up conchology-- In short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral, I am the very model of an up-to-date cook-general.

In fact, when I have learnt to tell a turnip from an artichoke, Or grill a steak that will not make my mistress's dinner-party choke; When I can cook a mutton chop or any plain comestible In such a way that it becomes not wholly indigestible; When I can wash a cup without inevitably breaking it, Or make a bed where folk can sleep at ease without remaking it; In short, when I've an inkling of economy domestical, You'll say, "Of all cook-generals this girl the very best I call." For my culinary ignorance and all-round imbecility Is only to be equalled by my housewifely futility-- But still, in learning vegetable, animal and mineral, I am the very pattern of an up-to-date cook-general.

[Sidenote: _The Aristocrats of Labour_]

The plethora of processions in 1901 moved _Punch_ to make various suggestions for the better conduct of such spectacles, mostly in the shape of fantastic and satirical concessions to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of sightseers. Warnings against the _panem et circenses_ habit were legitimate enough, but _Punch_ took a more aggressive line in his attack on the miners in 1901:--

A BLACK LOOK-OUT

(A paper picked up near the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

Pity the sorrows of a poor collier, who, if a shilling export duty is imposed upon coal, will have (possibly) to see--

1. His wife giving up her music and riding lessons.

2. His children not able to go to the seaside for a month or two.

3. His favourite licensed victualler unable to supply him with that extra quart he enjoys so much after he has drunk the others.

4. His dogs unable to compete for prizes because their upkeep will be too expensive.

5. His tailor sending in his account and respectfully requesting immediate payment.

6. His wine merchant writing to ask him why he has given up ordering champagne.

7. Worst (and, fortunately, most improbable) of all, himself having to work four days a week instead of three.

In earlier years _Punch_ would have given chapter and verse for such charges; the later method, though it makes easier reading, carries less weight. _Punch_ did not, however, wholly abandon the practice of "documenting" his criticism, and he turned it to excellent account in a discussion of the much-abused German clerk in 1898, when he quoted the following passage from the official Consular Report from Stettin, issued by the Foreign Office:--

Much of the commercial knowledge of Germany has been supplied by young Germans who have been employed as clerks in Great Britain, mostly as foreign correspondents. British clerks cannot be used as foreign correspondents, because not one in a thousand can correspond correctly in any foreign language.

For the effective German competition which threatened to oust British trade from the markets of the world, _Punch_ did not hold any one class responsible. The fault was our national complacency, symbolized in 1901 by a lethargic John Bull priding himself on the superior excellence of his goods, but declining to take the trouble to make foreign customers understand it. The contrast between the German and the Briton in regard to practical business capacity is brought out in the papers headed, "Pashley's Opinions." "Efficiency" was the motto of the hour, yet _Punch_ found it hard to reconcile the cry with the "Catchwords for the Million," especially the "Equal Rights of Man" as interpreted by trade union rules, especially those affecting bricklaying, which in his view sterilized competition and ambition. Another side of the subject is dealt with in the series of papers entitled, "How to get on," one of which satirizes the almost hysterical worship of "efficiency" by those who in the same breath declared that we were the greatest race on earth and also the greatest slackers, but confined their own energies to mere talk. The underlying principles, however, which govern _Punch's_ contributions to the "Efficiency" controversy could not be better summed up than in the dictum of Mr. J. M. Beck,[5] the Solicitor-General of the United States: "The great evil of the world to-day is the aversion to work."

[Footnote 5: "The Revolt against Authority." _Fortnightly Review_, November, 1921.]

[Sidenote: _Sport and Crime_]

What troubled _Punch_, to borrow an epigram from another American anonymous writer, was "not so much the unemployment of the idle as the idleness of the employed." He is increasingly concerned with the popular pre-occupation with sport and criminal celebrities, combined with a corresponding apathy on important questions. Foreign politics were only brought home to the masses when they lent themselves to sensational or spectacular treatment, and, in 1903, _Punch_ gibbets an announcement in the _Scotsman_: "Scenes resulting from the Macedonian Atrocities displayed by the Modern Marvel Cinematograph, at 3 and 8 (see Amusement Column)." The sentimental interest in criminals is bluntly rebuked as a perversion of the philanthropic maxim that "to know all is to forgive all"; the blame for this was attributed to the journals which catered for the million, but the avidity with which this pabulum was devoured, and the absence of any protest from those affected, was a disquieting symptom; and _Punch_ was within his rights in making game of the _Clarion_ when it scented class distinction in the abortive movement to introduce knee-breeches for evening wear.

[Sidenote: _Liberals and Labour_]

In the Unionist defeat at the election of 1906, _Punch_ recognized not merely the return to power of the Liberals, but the coming of the "New Demos," the growing importance of the Labour Party, and the increasing impetus lent to its demands. His "farewell to the beaten side" is animated by no enthusiasm for the victors:--

You leave a record which shall bear the light When History delves for Truth in after days, Not as the sudden mob condemns at sight, Or stints its grudging praise.

Meanwhile the heart of gratitude is cold; A young new Demos, born of yester-eve, Big-mouthed and blustering, overbears the old, Waiting for no man's leave.

Every inhuman name that he can spell He prints in red for all to know you by, Citing his gods to prove he would not tell, Nor yet believe, a lie.

He paints your lurid portraits on the polls:-- "Drivers of slaves that oust the white man's brood." "Bigots that bind in chains our children's souls!" "Filchers of poor folk's food!"

Had you been Czars to drain the people's blood, Or sought to earn a country's dying curse, Dragging her remnant honour through the mud, He could have done no worse.

His hooligans are out with stones and dirt; And in the darkness you must hide your head, Nor look for Chivalry to salve the hurt, For Demos reigns instead.

Not much it helps to know that those, ere long, Who lent him aid and did a mutual deal, Will find their henchman, grown a shade too strong, Stamping them under heel.

Little it serves that they, your old-time foes, Who found him useful for their present ends, Must seek you soon and plaintively propose-- "Please save us from our friends!"

But let this solace keep your hearts resigned-- That, till a second lustre's course is through, The noblest heritage you leave behind Demos can scarce undo.

The prophecy that the Liberals would invoke the assistance of the Unionists to "save them from their friends" was not fulfilled; the course of legislation up to the war indicated in the main a desire to consult the demands of Labour rather than to break away from the alliance. The summary of reasons "Why I lost" from defeated candidates furnishes a useful commentary on the verses quoted above. They include Chinese Labour, the Big Loaf cry, the Education Bill of 1902, the Trade Disputes Bill, Overbridge Trams, the Japanese Alliance and the _Entente Cordiale_. The messages were not actually received by _Punch_, but they are not an unfair interpretation of the issues which weighed with the bulk of the electorate. A "spirited foreign policy" was out of favour, and a cold fit had succeeded to the fervour of the "Khaki" election.

The Government lost no time in setting to work to redeem their pledge about Trade Disputes. Early in April, C.-B. figures in the cartoon "Hard to please" as a farmer soliloquizing over his dog (Labour), "He's had two platefuls of biscuits and isn't satisfied. Looks as if he wanted raw meat." The plates, labelled Workmen's Compensation and Merchant Shipping Bill, are both empty. The third, the Trade Disputes Bill, is full of biscuits as yet untouched. When the Attorney-General, Sir J. Lawson Walton, introduced that measure, _Punch_, in his "Essence of Parliament," speaks of it as a "ticklish Bill" conceding important demands in regard to picketing and conspiracy, but "as to the immunity of Trade Union funds from amercement consequent on civil actions, the Bill does not go the full lengths of the demands of Labour." The attitude of the Labour Party, who threatened to bring in their own Bill and to insist on its substitution for the Government measure, is symbolized in the cartoon showing Labour offering _his_ scales to Justice in preference to her own, in which Capital and Labour are equally balanced, with the comment, "I think you'll find _this_ pair works better--for me." The climbing down of the Government in the autumn session is illustrated in a further cartoon representing Labour as the predominant partner. The Liberal Party is seen on foot being pushed on by a donkey (Labour) drawing a cart in which the Trade Disputes Bill is sitting. "Yes," says the old lady, "I was wrong to threaten him with a whip. The dear creature must be led, not driven. Still--this isn't quite the way I meant to come." Comment in _Punch's_ "Essence of Parliament" on the progress of the Bill is curiously meagre, but there is one illuminating paragraph on the Report Stage: "The Attorney-General explained that when at the earlier stage he argued against the immunity of Trade Unions from action at law, he did not mean to debar himself from subsequently insisting upon the justice of such immunity." The momentous and far-reaching consequences of a measure which created a privileged class and set them above the law were only dimly apprehended in _Punch_, who confined himself in his further comments to the lack of spirit shown by the Opposition in the Lords. Thus in "The Better Part of Valour" we see the Trade Disputes Bill standing over the prostrate figure of the Education Bill, about to batter its way into the Lords, while Lord Lansdowne remarks: "_I_ bar your way? My dear fellow! Why, you've got a mandate." "Well, so had my friend here," rejoins the T.D.B., on which Lord Lansdowne replies: "Ah! but not such a big one!" The same idea is developed in the Epilogue, where the Lords are charged by the representative of "The People's Will" with having attacked and brutally ill-treated the Education Bill, while they were too cowardly to tackle the Trade Disputes Bill.

[Sidenote: _The Revolt of the Middle Classes_]

The _Daily Mail_, which had anticipated a Unionist victory at the polls, now espoused the cause of the "Middle-Class Serf," taxed and rated and bled beyond endurance "in the interests of the most pampered section of the community the labouring man," and rumours of the formation of a new political body, with a view to obtaining justice and recognition, impelled _Punch_ to indulge in a forecast, half sympathetic, half sceptical, of "The Turning of the Middle-Class Worm":--

England, be warned! The time for patience passes; You are more near the eve Of a revolt among the Middle Classes Than you perhaps believe; Worn to a thread by Labour's licensed plunder Of what poor desultory pay they earn, Can anybody reasonably wonder These worms should turn?

In 1897 _Punch_ had resented Government interference with the management of workhouses, and fell foul of the Local Government Board when a Board of Guardians in Lincolnshire were asked to make a return of the number of currants put into the children's puddings. Ten years later the ground of this complaint had shifted; and the administrative scandals which _Punch_ assails in 1907 are ascribed to the extravagance of Labour Guardians. Poplar is described as "the Pauper's Paradise"; and the new Bumbledom is shown, in a perversion of the scene from "Oliver Twist," "asking for more," while the miserable ratepayer ladles out champagne-cup for its refreshment. The "latest excursion" is "A day in Profuse Poplar," the lair of the "Gorgeous Guardians."

The Workmen's Compensation Act is treated as a set-off to the Prevention of Corruption Act, aimed at the abuse of secret commissions, and a butler is shown reassuring a cook and advising her how to get her own back by a carefully contrived accident. The same spirit is revealed in the picture of the workman whose innocence has been outraged by someone who said he had seen him hurry: "I _never_ 'urry."

To this year belongs the farcical suggestion of a Society to Protect Employers, for the special benefit of persons who were afraid of their servants and had not the courage to dismiss them.

_Punch_ was nearer the mark in his illustrations of the popular prejudice against the Army. A football enthusiast at a match commiserates "silly people who mess about with a rifle on Saturday afternoons"; and a "Spartan mother" standing at a barrack gate, uplifts her voice in thankfulness that her Bill "isn't wasting his time drilling," while Bill is shown in an inset engrossed in the contemplation of a pot of beer.

_Punch_ distrusted Socialism because, in his view, it led in practice to vicarious generosity. The Socialist would give half of everything, so long as he didn't possess it himself. Yet in apportioning the blame for the railway trouble in 1907, _Punch_ did not spare Capital. Railway directors and trade unions were in his cartoon shown as equally animated by a disregard for the interests of the public. Incidentally we may note that the volunteer service rendered by the general public in 1919 is anticipated in a humorous sketch of the experiences of an amateur porter. _Punch_, even where he felt strongly, was alive to the extravagances of the extremists on his own side, witness the verses in 1908 which purport to express the perplexity of "an open-minded beggar":--

[Sidenote: "_The Open-minded Beggar_"]

Reader, tell me, if you know, What, on earth, is Socialism. Is it--men have told me so-- Some preposterous abysm, Into which we all may drop-- With the criminals on top?

Is the vehement _Express_ Justified in all it mentions; And are Wells and G. B. S. Worse than _Sikes_ in their intentions? Do those Fabian beasts of prey Wish to take my wife away?

Or--observe that I am quite Open-minded, gentle reader-- Are they sometimes nearly right In the shocking _Labour Leader_? Will the coming Commune be Paradise for you and me?

Do you think it can be true That the death of competition Guarantees for me and you Sinless Edens--new edition? Or was Stuart Mill correct-- Will there be some grave defect?

Shall we all be servile wrecks With the brand of Marx imprinted On our miserable necks, As _The Referee_ has hinted? Or--see _Justice_--shall we share Perfect freedom with the air?

Will that entity, the State Of Collectivist Utopia, Actually operate Something like a cornucopia? Or will Hardie's fatted friends Leave me only odds and ends?

In this monster maze of doubt I am groping like a blind man. Shall I boldly blossom out As a follower of Hyndman? Or continue to exist As an Individualist?

So, dear reader, will you, please, Tell a poor, distracted Briton Whom, in troubled times like these, He should put his little bit on? And, philosopher and guide, _Do_ pick out the winning side!

_Punch's_ comment on the Eight Hours Bill is influenced by the objections of those who opposed it on the ground that it would affect the cost of all the necessaries of life. King Coal observes, "This means that I shall have to reduce my output," and Commerce rejoins, "Then I shall have to reduce mine, too," and both agree in doubting whether the Government had ever thought of this inevitable result.

Old Age Pensions are shown in 1908 as having already become a millstone round the neck of the Government; and in that form Mr. Asquith is seen tying them to the person of Mr. Lloyd George as a presentation to be worn by all Chancellors of the Exchequer in perpetuity. "Several of our contemporaries," _Punch_ observes, "are devoting their columns to an explanation of the best way to obtain an Old Age Pension. _Mr. Punch's_ advice is: _Don't save_."

On the much-vexed question of Chinese Labour, _Punch_ sided against its critics, and his cartoons in 1906 represent Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman forcing unwelcome freedom on the Chinese coolie. Ignorance of Imperial questions on the part of the Labour Party is a frequent theme of comment. In the same year we find an article describing an imaginary tour in the Colonies by Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Philip Snowden. Mr. Keir Hardie spent two months in India in 1907, and the reports of his speeches, which he declared to be gross exaggerations and fabrications, led to vehement protests in the British Press. His biographer states that "for a full fortnight Keir Hardie was the most violently detested man throughout the English-speaking world. Even _Punch_ joined in the vituperation with a cartoon by Linley Sambourne, which showed Britannia gripping the agitator by the scruff of the neck and apostrophizing him: 'Here, you'd better come home. We know all about you there, and you'll do less harm.'" _Punch's_ adverse comments were not merely pictorial, and though Mr. Keir Hardie laid himself open to criticism by his angularity, his vanity and such remarks as "India to-day is governed by a huge military oligarchy," his courage and sincerity passed unrecognized.

Strikes and trade depression furnish themes for comment in 1908. In one cartoon Trade is shown as a lean and ill-favoured goose that has lost confidence in herself; in another, an engineer going back to work after seven months' stoppage, meets a cotton-spinning girl just coming out, and is credited with the admission that his action has done no good to himself or anyone else.

In 1909-1910 the conflict between Lords and Commons over the Budget proposals overshadowed all other home issues. It even became a subject of debate at preparatory schools, and _Punch_ quotes a _bonâ fide_ letter from a boy of nine: "We had two debates yesterday about the Budget being rejected. I was against the Budget, but the ones who were for it won, because just about half the ones who were against it had to go away for their prayers." Mr. Lloyd George was now the champion and hero of the democracy, for this was the year of the famous Limehouse speech and its sequel at Newcastle, where he referred to the House of Lords as "500 ordinary men, chosen accidentally from the unemployed." Dukes were handled almost as roughly as by _Punch_ in the 'forties, and "robber-barons" were held up to obloquy. _Punch_ resented this wholesale vituperation, and indulged in some effective reprisals in his criticism of trade union indiscipline, notably the growing tendency towards unofficial and lightning strikes. Thus, in 1910, he published a cartoon showing a trade union official lying prostrate in the road, overthrown and left behind by a crowd marching under a banner inscribed "Down with Authority." The comments on the payment of Members in the same year imply that trade unions were hostile to a change which impaired their control. The State might pay M.P.s, but the trade unions must call the tune. Nor was _Punch_ favourably impressed by the Government's scheme of Insurance against Unemployment, which, in his forecast, would only encourage the existing reluctance to work.

[Sidenote: _Claims for "Recognition"_]

Throughout 1911 and 1912 the claims of the new Trade Unionism met with little sympathy. "Look here, my friend," says John Bull of the "New Volunteer Police" to a Trade Union leader: "I've been hearing a good deal of talk of 'recognition.' Well, I represent the public, and it's about time _my_ interests were 'recognized.'" A month later, in October, 1911, an "imported agitator" is shown talking to his comrade as they watch the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Sydney Buxton) nailing up a notice of the new Government Conciliation Scheme, with Sir George Askwith as chairman of the Industrial Council. "Don't be down-hearted," he observes. "Let's hope we shall be able to make as much trouble as before." This was apportioning the responsibility for failure in advance; but unfortunately failure there was. _Punch's_ frontispiece to 1912 is the "tug of war" of Labour and Capital. The coal crisis was again acute in February, but in its opening stages _Punch's_ hostility was chiefly displayed against the coal merchant, who was against strikes, but the more they were threatened the better it suited his book. _Punch_ derived a certain malicious satisfaction from the spectacle of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's exclusion from the coal conference; but recognized that the final arbiter was not this or that leader or statesman but Famine. The thorny question of "blackleg" labour having again emerged, _Punch_ asserted the right of the community in no uncertain terms. John Bull declares that he can't make the _striker_ work, if he won't; but if others want to, he can and will make the striker let them. This strike introduced a new figure into _Punch's_ portrait gallery; "Prince Petroleo" being introduced for the first time as a possible "second string" and rival of the hitherto indispensable King Coal. But such light-hearted treatment is henceforth rarely found in the treatment of industrial troubles. By the summer John Bull is seen on the edge of the crater of Labour unrest, listening vainly for any reassuring voices from its depths. The methods of the Trade Unionist are contrasted with those of Justice: he is all for striking first and arguing afterwards. The threat of a general strike was heard in June, but _Punch_ remained sceptical as to the response. Agitators might call spirits from the vasty deep; but there would be no answer. In 1913 Dublin, for the first time in its long and chequered career, became the chief focus of industrial unrest in the British Isles, for this was the year of the strike of the Dublin transport workers, and the emergence, in the person of the notorious Jim Larkin, of a super-agitator of the most strenuous type. Strange things were done in the name of Liberty Hall--his headquarters--Mr. Birrell's absenteeism having become chronic, not to say conspicuous. Larkin was arrested and imprisoned, but released with a rapidity which reduced the penalty to a farce; and the assaults on the Dublin police during the strike riots in the winter were sufficiently severe to excuse _Mr. Punch_ for calling their assailants the "be-labouring classes."

[Sidenote: _Labour Members in Transition_]

Mr. John Burns's political evolution, since the days when _Punch_ savagely attacked him at the time of the Trafalgar Square riots in 1884, had long removed him from the range of attack on the score of his revolutionary views. His former associates regarded him as a renegade; independent observers found in him an energetic and arbitrary bureaucrat. _Punch_ appreciated his manliness, but could not resist having an occasional dig at his complacent egotism, and when the Cabinet was reconstructed early in 1914, there is a picture of him praising the four new appointments as "excellent choices--with perhaps the exception of Samuel, Hobhouse and Masterman"--in other words, all but his own.

Towards Labour members of the House of Commons, _Punch_, as we have seen, had of recent years been none too friendly: least of all to Mr. Keir Hardie. But on the occasion of the debate in the House over the resignations at the Curragh in March, 1914, _Punch's_ Parliamentary representative credits them with intervening effectually as representatives of the vast social and political weight behind them. In particular he praises Mr. John Ward and Mr. J. H. Thomas for their warning against militarism. "General Gough may feel keenly the Ulster situation. Tommy Atkins will feel not less keenly the industrial situation." For Mr. Thomas went on to point out that in the following November four hundred thousand railwaymen would come to grips with their employers, and if they did not attain satisfactory terms they might simultaneously strike. And if the Opposition doctrine in regard to Ulster were sound, added Mr. Thomas, "it will be my duty to tell the railwaymen to prepare for the worst by organizing their forces, the half-million capital possessed by the Union to be used to provide arms and ammunition for them." Mr. Thomas still occasionally utters blood-curdling warnings, but is now the special _bête noire_, to put it mildly, of the Labour extremists. General Gough's views on Ulster and Ireland have undergone considerable modifications, and Mr. John Ward, who denounced military juntas, is Colonel John Ward, D.S.O., the gallant soldier, fearlessly candid friend of Labour and uncompromising foe of Bolshevism.

EDUCATION AND THE CHURCHES

The passing of the old order in Education had for its chief landmark the Act of 1871, but the change admits of endless illustrations. Many of these lie outside the scope of our survey; but no treatise on the Modern Child would be complete which did not take account of _Punch's_ contributions to this engrossing problem. To take one example, the precocious representatives of the "younger generation" in Leech's pictures are almost invariably shown as the "sedulous apes" of their elders as men of the world. In the period under review in this volume imitation gives place to independence. The precocious child of both sexes--Leech's precocious children were almost without exception boys--is sometimes pedantic, but the distinctive note is one of scepticism and revolt. The young iconoclast has "found out all about Santa Claus and is now going to look into this Robinson Crusoe business." When the Rector asks Molly would she rather be beautiful or good, Molly audaciously replies: "I'd rather be beautiful and repent." Another version of the same retort is illustrated in Mr. Shepperson's charming picture. And when Uncle George, shocked by his little niece's declaration that she hated all her lessons, asks appealingly, "Come, now, you don't mean to say you hate history?" he receives the blunt answer: "Yes, I do. To tell you the truth, Uncle, I don't care a bit what anybody ever did." In this magnificent declaration of independence _Punch_ sought to reduce to an absurdity the new doctrine of "self-expression" as adopted by the nursery. _Punch's_ love of children was beyond question, but he remained in substantial accord with the Greek sage who said that the roots of education were bitter but the fruit sweet; that to avoid or evade the discipline of parents and teachers was to forgo learning and virtue. The modern and already fashionable inversion of the old method, by which education was to be "brightened" and sweetened at the outset, and every study turned into a game, seemed to _Punch_ subversive of what was not merely an old but an inevitable order, and the new science of psychological "Pædology" found in him an invariably hostile critic. Passing over a burlesque article on the "Scientific Investigation of Infancy" based on a paper in the _Fortnightly_ in 1895, I may note the first of his rejoinders to those austere educationists who have made war on Wonderland. In that year Mr. Holman, an inspector of schools, in an address delivered before the College of Preceptors, declared that "the race has outgrown fairy-tales, and to use them for early education is practically to bring about a reversion to type. They express the ideas of a profoundly ignorant primitive man. The hero has more often than not to lie, steal and cheat and to be an ingrate to accomplish his ends." A mass meeting of fairy-tale heroes and heroines, convoked by _Punch_, carried by acclamation a resolution of protest against this heresy, which, by the way, has of late years been espoused by the redoubtable Madame Montessori. _Punch_ carried the war into the enemy's camp in a revised version of _Cinderella_, rewritten so as to combine instruction with amusement, and based on the latest scientific, ethnological, and psychological discoveries and theories; while in "New Lamps for Old" he retold other nursery tales so as to meet the supposed requirements of the modern child. I am afraid it must be taken as a confession of the failure of his efforts that in 1911 _Punch_ described an "advanced child" replying to his grandmother's offer to tell him a story, "Oh, no, Granny, not a _story_, please! They're so stodgy and unconvincing and as out-of-date as _tunes_ in music. We should much prefer an impressionist word-picture or a subtle character-sketch."

[Sidenote: _The War on Wonderland_]

The attempt to teach gardening at certain schools in the 'nineties was "guyed" in the account of a disastrous imaginary experiment--the encouragement of Small Holdings for Small Boys at a fashionable Preparatory School. Here _Punch_ is irresponsible and reactionary; but there is point in his criticism of the new-fangled cult of "nature study," on the ground that even playtime was now made a burden and toil for children by object lessons. In the same year (1900) the doctrine of self-expression was proclaimed in strident tones by Mr. Bernard Shaw in a lecture to the members of the Teachers' Guild of Great Britain. "Any grown-up person," said the prophet, "guilty of the crime of trying to form the character of children ought to be drowned. If there is to be any progress at all, it must be recognized that the children know better than their teachers." This was almost beyond the reach of comment or parody, but _Punch_ did his best. Cranks, whether official or unofficial, he treated with impartial disrespect, and shortly before falling upon Mr. Shaw he had gibbeted a school inspector who had been alleged in his report to have penned this immortal sentence:--

The lower babies' mental arithmetic leaves much to be desired.

In the verses on "Spoilt Parents" in 1901 _Punch_ expresses an obviously ironical approval of filial insubordination as encouraged in America, and a year later took for his text a passage quoted from an essay written by an Australian girl of thirteen, in which she had referred to "The Lady of Shalott" as "a fairy tale I remember in my childhood." In 1903 the activities of the "Pædologist" furnished Punch with abundant material. He celebrates, again with ironical applause, the expulsion of Euclid; he refers to an American lady who, in discussing suitable literature for children, had found a "moral squint" in _Jack and the Beanstalk_ and _Bluebeard_; and he founds an excellent set of verses on an article in the _Contemporary_ by Dr. Woods Hutchinson. The child, according to this eminent writer, passes through all the stages of evolution; "he is born not an Anglo-Saxon, but a Cave-dweller," and _Punch_ proceeds to expound the "recapitulation theory" as follows:--

When Edward, crawling on the floor, Invades the eight-day clock, Pray do not spank him any more For dirtying his frock. He is a little troglodyte, As were our sires before us, Who vanished when there hove in sight The grim ichthyosaurus.

When, _ætat._ four, with savage joy The hunter's art he plies Upon the panes, don't scold the boy For torturing the flies. He has but reached the second scene When men were all the scions Of mighty Nimrod, and were keen On slaying bears and lions.

At six, ambitious Edward yearns A pirate king to be; The tables into ships he turns, And sails the fireside sea. Then if the things are smashed to bits, Don't give the boy a licking; He's reached a further phase, and its The æon of the Viking.

A little, and the pirate bold A patriot becomes; He fights the rascal imps who hold In force the neighbouring slums. Pray don't repress his noble rage, E'en though his nose be gory; He is but passing through the age Of good Queen Bess's glory.

Last scene of all that ends this slight But most eventful play Is symbol of the lofty height Achieved by man to-day. At ten can Edward understand What money means: he's willing To be a saint for sixpence, and An angel for a shilling.

[Sidenote: _Evolution and Self-Expression_]

As a rule, the most clamorous apostles of the new doctrines hailed from the New World. In 1904 Mr. G. Archibald, a "Child Specialist" of Montreal, gave utterance to the now familiar view that "Whenever you say 'Don't' to a child you crush the creative instinct within him which is the richest and most precious thing he has." _Punch_, it is hardly necessary to remind the reader, was not likely to subscribe to this view. Had not the _Daily Telegraph_ referred to his advice to those about to marry--_Don't_--as "the memorable monosyllabic monition of the Democritus of Fleet Street"? So we are not surprised to find him enlarging ironically on the precept of Montreal:--

Should the genius of Marmaduke lead him to rear, From the dining-room floor to the ceiling, A palace of crystal and china, oh! fear To exhibit an atom of feeling. But your Satsuma bowl you will cheerfully bring, And, where others would threaten to skin him, You will beg him to do as he likes with the thing, Lest you crush the creative within him.

If Lucy refuses potatoes and bread, And calls for méringues and for trifle, Or anything else that may enter her head, Such yearnings another would stifle. You will hand her a menu-card, beg her to state What she happens to fancy for dinner, And pray that you never may find it your fate To crush the creative within her.

Advancing years failed to reconcile _Punch_ to the non-repressive method. As late as 1912 one of his artists depicted the chaotic results in an elementary school of realizing the ideals of one of the pamphlets of a Teachers' Association, viz., to place a child "in an atmosphere where there are no restraints, where he can move freely about in the schoolroom, where the teacher is essentially a passive agent and where there is no punishment."

[Sidenote: _The Sompting Experiment_]

In this context I may note that about this time _Punch_ frequently dwells on the unsuitability and extravagant cost of the amusements provided for children. In "How to Befriend the Gilded Babes" he castigates without mercy a gentleman who had been writing on entertainments for titled juveniles, and outlines a children's party the cost of which is estimated at the modest figure of £250. _Punch's_ repeated protests against the perversion of pantomimes to suit grown-ups are too familiar to call for detailed mention, but in connexion with youthful precocity I may mention a curious anticipation dating from the autumn of 1905. This is a "domestic drama, composed by an infant of ten summers who, after reaching mature years, retrieved it from a box containing his toy theatre and copied it out," exactly as it stood. The drama, which is entitled "The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing," bears all the stigmata of a _bonâ fide_ child's essay in dramatic authorship, and foreshadows the exploits of "Daisy Ashford" without being either so funny or so vulgar as _The Young Visiters_. _Punch_ had always been alive to the educative value of the theatre, and it speaks well for his vigilance that the remarkable experiment carried out in the little village of Sompting in Sussex did not escape his notice. The children were taught by making them act their lessons, and _Punch_ in some whimsical verses anticipates the extension of the method to the public schools. It is true that he does not take the experiment quite seriously, but he does not "crab" it. It was reserved in later years for a brilliant and enthusiastic educational reformer, Mr. E. G. A. Holmes, to hail in the Sompting schoolmistress the "Egeria" of the new _régime_ of elementary instruction. In less benevolent mood _Punch_ quoted in 1907 an apparently genuine letter which had appeared in the _Children's Realm_, a paper which aimed at teaching "the higher way of living to the young." The letter describes a small boy who was "a very earnest vegetarian" and a super-prig into the bargain. _Punch_ was exasperated by prigs in all walks of life, and it rejoiced his heart when Mr. Roosevelt compared President Wilson to a "Byzantine logothete." The high-browed infant filled him with dismay, and in 1910 he illustrated the "advance in elementary culture" by a highly imaginative account of the reply given by a very small boy who had been asked by a lady visitor whether he enjoyed his recent birthday party:--

HENRY: "In the impression retained by the memory, shades have ceased to count: it stands, sharply, for a few estimated and cherished things rather than, nebulously, for a swarm of possibilities. I cut the silhouette, in a word, out of the curious confusion of it all, I save and fix the outline, and it is with my eye on this profiled distinction that as a critic I speak. It is the function of the critic to assert with assurance when once his impression has become final; and it is in noting this circumstance that I perceive how slenderly prompted I am to deliver myself on such an occasion upon the merits or attractiveness of the entertainment so generously provided for the diversion of myself and friends."

(Lady visitor before swooning has sufficient presence of mind to ring the bell for assistance.)

[Sidenote: _Punch's "Universal Hymn"_]

This is an instance of the danger of trying to kill two birds with one stone, for the parody of Henry James's later manner distracts our attention from the main aim of the satire. _Punch_ was more sorry for than annoyed at the children of Chelsea, of ages from five to sixteen, who were said in 1908 never to ask for Dickens or the _Jungle Book_ at the Free Library, but to devour works on "science, sociology, fine arts and religion." In the same year the Sociological Society held an exhibition of charts and plans, to show parents how to select their children's toys "as a profound educational agency," but _Punch_ saw in it nothing but an exhibition of the profoundest Prigmatism--to use a word which he coined in later years. His bitterest comment on the new spirit of the young belongs to the year 1913, when a boy of seventeen rebukes his sister of twelve for thanking an old man for picking up her bag. The best antidote to this spirit was furnished by the Boy Scout movement, which grafted on to the public-school code of "playing the game" the larger ideals of altruism and mutual-as opposed to self-help. I have already spoken of the origin and development of what was the greatest non-official and informal contribution to national education of our times. Logically perhaps it ought to have been discussed in this chapter, but in its wider implications it belongs to the social and political history of the last twenty years.

To turn from general tendencies to the controversies which arose out of the working of the Education Act of 1871, we find that _Punch_ was, as usual, impartially critical of all extremists, whether clerical or secularist. Against the latter he inveighed in 1894 in his "Universal Hymn for School Board Hymnals, adapted to modern Educational requirements":--

Arise my soul--if soul I've got-- And, vaguely vocal, thank For all the blessings of my lot The--Unknown Eternal Blank!

I thank the--Streak of Azure Haze That on my birth has smiled, And made me, in post-Christian days, A happy School-Board child.

I was not born, as myriads were, In ages dark and dim, And taught to pray a pious prayer, Or sing a holy hymn.

I was not born a little slave To formula and creed, Or taught that Heaven must light the Grave, Or God-love banish greed.

I was not born when priests might roam And teach the childish band To sing about Our Heavenly Home, Or of that Happy Land!

Mere dogma muddles up the mind, And leaves it in a mess. Religion surely was designed To make our freedom less.

The Conscience-Clause? It may secure _Some_ freedom to the slave. But Where's the sense--unless we're sure That we a conscience _have_?

We've lots of "Standards" which we treasure, There's one superfluous, quite, A Standard human wit can't measure (In Board Schools)--that of Right!

Secular matters make our joys, And facts are our sole food. Do we turn out _good_ girls and boys? Good heavens! What _is_ "Good"?

Through all the periods of my life One goodness I'll pursue; With rare "good things" this world is rife; I'll try to get a few.

At the close of the same year, however, _Punch_ castigates sectarian bigots with equal vigour. He took for his text a letter by Dr. James Martineau to _The Times_, in which that "wise and gentle teacher" had appealed to the conflicting parties of School Board electors and members to reconcile themselves to a peaceful co-existence on the basis of our common Christianity. _Punch_ does not spare "secular spleen" and "shortsighted super-thrift," but his severest criticisms are reserved for the sectarian zealots, Anglican and Nonconformist, who had broken up the compromise of 1871, and he concludes:--

Oh, self-elected shepherds, with your crooks, Fighting, while round your folds the wolves are creeping!-- Pedagogues wrangling o'er your lesson-books, Whilst your wrath rages human love sits weeping! If of "a common Christianity" Ye were but practical and patient teachers, In Education's task ye might _agree_. Now sense is asking, "Who shall teach our teachers?"

[Sidenote: _The Abortive Bill of 1896_]

_Punch's_ comments foreshadowed the conflict that raged over the Education Bill of 1896, which had been framed to redeem the pledge given by the Government to aid voluntary schools. Denounced by the Opposition as a deliberate attempt to shatter the school-board system and promote the interest of a particular sect, while, on the other hand, all sects were agreed that the proposed aid was inadequate; swamped by amendments--1,238, to be precise, had been placed on the paper when the House met in June after the Whitsuntide Recess--the Bill was abandoned in Committee without exciting any real regret from any party. _Punch_ chronicles its withdrawal without any comment, but his silence cannot be interpreted as expressing satisfaction with the existing _régime_. In 1899 he falls foul of Sir John Gorst, then the acting head of the Board of Education, for his alleged intention of entrusting the teaching of all other children to half-educated pupil teachers.

The progress and passage of the much-discussed Education Act of 1902 revived _Punch's_ distrust of the so-called "friends" of the human child. He shows Mr. Balfour on a bicycle steering a perilous and devious course beset with obstacles, and develops the theme in a fable, based on that of the Old Woman going to Market, in which Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr. Bryce, Archbishop Temple, Mr. Lloyd George and Sir William Harcourt are brought in to represent the various and conflicting elements in the struggle. _Punch's_ moral is that "if you don't all hurt each others' feelings a good deal, there's no chance of getting the Education Bill through Parliament." The truth of this comment was abundantly shown by the vehement controversy which arose over the famous Kenyon-Slaney amendment, limiting the right of an incumbent to give religious instruction in a Church School--a provision which infuriated the High Anglicans and was reluctantly acquiesced in by moderate Churchmen. _Per contra_ Dr. Percival, the Bishop of Hereford, who voted with the Opposition, declared that the Bill had given great strength to the Opposition to the Church in the country and tended to destroy its spiritual influence. And Lord Rosebery, while not in favour of the refusal of Nonconformists to pay rates, confessed that if they submitted tamely to the enactments of the Bill they would cease to exist politically.

[Sidenote: _A Stepping-Stone Ministry_]

_Punch_ had no sympathy with the "passive resistance" movement, and when Mr. Lloyd George in 1904 advocated the closing of all the elementary schools in Wales as a protest against the Education Act, he regarded him as more desirous to serve party ends than to save the souls of the young. In 1906 it was the turn of the Liberals to redeem _their_ pledges, and Mr. Birrell was in charge of the measure. _Punch_ accordingly depicted him as a schoolmaster saying to the Act of 1902, "My boy, this [the cane he is holding] can't hurt you more than it's going to hurt me." _Punch_ evidently had no love for the new Bill, but his satire is impartially levelled at the irreconcilable sectarian differences of the supporters and antagonists of the measure. All this wrangling had nothing to do with the education of children. The gradual and inevitable transformation of the measure by the end of the year is happily hit off in an adaptation from "Alice in Wonderland," with Mr. Balfour as the Cheshire Cat and Mr. Birrell as Alice carrying what _had_ been a baby, but was now a pig, as the Cheshire Cat expected.

The Education Office in these years was the great jumping-off ground for aspirants to higher Ministerial office, and was occupied by a succession of "transient and (sometimes) embarrassed phantoms." Mr. Birrell quitted Whitehall to govern Ireland from Overstrand, and in 1908 _Punch_, in his cartoon on the tardy compromise achieved by the Church and Nonconformity, showed "Master Runciman," with his Bill, being carried safely through the waters of strife by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Clifford.

In 1905, according to the _Scotsman_ (quoted by _Punch_), the prospective Unionist candidate for Berwick maintained before a meeting of electors that "the only way to deal with the religious question was to allow each denomination to provide religious teaching in school hours _for the parents of such children as desired it_." The italics are provided by _Punch_, who threw further light on the need for this "vicarious religion" in an illustrated dialogue published in 1911:--

SCHOOLMISTRESS: "And am I to give the child religious instruction?"

MOTHER: "I don't care wot yer do so long as yer don't bash 'er abaht the 'ead."

[Sidenote: _John Bull, Junior_]

Throughout this period _Punch_ was perhaps more concerned with the youngest than with the younger generation--with the progress of the child than with that of the ingenuous youth. Yet he was not neglectful of the changes going on in public and preparatory schools. The picture of "John Bull, Junior," in 1905 represents the human boy of the public-school type as still primarily interested in pastime:--

For instance, his industry's tireless In getting his _Wisden_ by rote; But of Signor Marconi (the wireless) He takes the most negligent note. That the primary use of the cable Is cricket, he's free to maintain-- He associates cricket with Abel, And bats with the mention of Cain.

He can't tell the whereabouts clearly Of Constantinople or Prague, But he'll talk by the hour about Brearley, He'll tell you the birthplace of Haigh. He cannot be sure if the Hooghly's A river, a town, or a hill; But then upon Bosanquet's "googlies" A volume he'd easily fill.

This was before the aeroplane and the motor had infected schoolboys with a passion for mechanics, and the view expressed is borne out by a suggestion made in 1907 by Sir J. J. Thomson, and duly noted in _Punch_, that boys should go to school in holiday time and during term time should "stay at home and learn something." A year earlier _Punch_ had very properly laid his finger on a blot in the school system--the inadequate salaries of assistant masters. In "The Worm Turns" he had enlarged on the protest which one of the number had registered in the _Westminster Gazette_. It was all very well, as "Kappa" had done in the columns of that paper, to abuse schoolmasters, but what could you expect at the price when, at the best preparatory schools, £120 a year, resident, was considered adequate pay for a first-class man, and things were not much better in the public schools. Hence _Punch's_ versified gloss, in which the much-maligned assistant master sums up the matter thus:--

Ah, well, it may be we are all past praying for, But in this world one gets what one is paying for, (That seems a fairly obvious remark);

And I for one, although exposed so crushingly, Still mean to draw my salary unblushingly-- That of a third-rate clerk.

_Punch_ clearly admitted that all was not well with a system in which undue prominence was attached to the athletic prowess, and in 1909 he pilloried an advertisement for a schoolmaster which had appeared in the _Spectator_: "Rugby Blue required. Football is the chief subject, but elementary Latin, English and Mathematics are also looked for." On the other hand, _Punch_ was no believer in the commercializing of our public schools. When Lord Rosebery in 1896 had said that "an inquiry by Chambers of Commerce into the progress of technical and commercial education in Germany would make our hair stand on end," _Punch_ showed him as the Fat Boy in _Pickwick_ saying, "I wants to make yer flesh creep." And when, in the fateful year 1914, a "Commercial Side," on lines already laid down in many secondary schools of a different type, was started at Bradfield College, _Punch_ sought to reduce the plan to an absurdity by an imaginative account of its working.

[Sidenote: _School Diet_]

As regards the feeding of boys at school, the change from the Spartan _régime_ of the previous generation can be vividly illustrated from the pages of _Punch_. Down to the close of the Victorian age, hampers were, if not an absolute necessity, at any rate a welcome supplement to the frugal diet provided at most schools. In 1899 _Punch_ supported the continuance of hampers in some ironical verses inspired by a letter in the _Daily Chronicle_ from a schoolmaster's wife. The good lady had complained of the effect of Tuck upon the ethics of schoolboys, and advocated ordinary school diet. _Punch_ at the time regarded this as a counsel of stoical perfection utterly wasted on the ordinary human boy. A very different note was sounded by the Headmaster of Rugby in 1912, who was reported to have said at the Conference on School Diet that "while adults should rise from the table hungry, children should reach a sense of repletion before rising." Accordingly _Punch_ published a picture of a mother with an alarmingly obese small boy interviewing a house-master who proudly remarks: "Then as to food, we feed our boys to repletion five times a day, and our chef's puddings have no equal in any school in the Kingdom." This was an exaggeration so far as the public schools were concerned, but it was fair satire of the sumptuousness of the fashionable and expensive preparatory school of pre-war days. _There_ the pendulum had swung to the opposite extreme from the meagre diet of the 'seventies, when there was no luxury at preparatory schools and at many of the public schools the feeding was a scandal.

On the new relations that had sprung up between boys and masters--the "elder brother" theory--I do not find any notable mention in _Punch_. I suspect him of adhering to the old view that it was a far higher compliment to a master to describe him as a "just beast" than "popular." The decline of the classical side is touched on, while the continued inefficiency of instruction in modern languages is delightfully satirized in the late Mr. F. H. Townsend's picture of a young lord of creation, the centre of an adoring group of small sisters. "Now Guy," says his mother, "tell us about the school. Is everything all right?" "Oh, yes, Mother--except one thing." "My darling! What is it?" "Well, I wish you hadn't got us that French nurse to teach us the right pronunciation; it makes the other fellows laugh so." _Punch's_ picture was true of a time now rapidly passing away, and furnishes a valuable comment on the solution of a century-old problem. The French master, generally a refugee in the old days, was never accorded a proper status and very seldom recognized as one of themselves by his colleagues. He was generally poor, and he was a standing proof of the saying of the Latin satirist that there is nothing more cruel about poverty than the fact that it makes people ridiculous. Also nine times out of ten he was unable to keep order; so that in the fullness of time headmasters found themselves confronted by this dilemma. They had to choose between foreigners with a correct accent who could not maintain discipline, and natives with a bad accent who could. And in pre-war days they often decided in favour of the latter.

[Sidenote: _Commerce at the Universities_]

_Punch_ viewed the multiplication of universities with acquiescence rather than enthusiasm. He had been, as we have seen, a severe critic of academic obstructives at Oxford and Cambridge, but he was entirely opposed to their reconstruction on purely utilitarian lines. In his view there was room for universities of different types; to standardize them would be a blunder, almost a crime. So when a school of brewing was established at Birmingham, he gave a forecast of Oxford in the year 2000 A.D., completely commercialized, with the Ashmolean transformed into the University Co-operative Stores. In 1901 a daily paper had said that, compared with the University of Birmingham, Oxford must seem hopelessly out of date. _Punch_ rejoined in a masque in which the claims of the old and new universities are reviewed and contrasted, but the last word is left to the Oxford chorus:--

Out of date and useless we, Commerce is beyond our ken-- Let us thank the gods we be Twenty Oxford men.

Mr. Andrew Carnegie's gift of £2,000,000 to the Scottish universities in the same year is eulogized in the cartoon of "The Macmillion," but the prose comment, in which the extensions of the scheme are foreshadowed, is not lacking in an element of irony.

Mr. Rhodes's historic bequest to Oxford is discussed in an imaginary letter from a Cambridge to an Oxford don. The Cambridge don ridicules the notion that it would revolutionize Oxford, convert it into the University of the Empire, or transform the hoary old home of lost causes into a realization of the ideals of young barbarians from the bounding prairie or of the pipe-sucking beer-nurtured students of the Fatherland. The new-comers would find their level and, if really decent fellows, would do well enough. "Oxford will still remain Oxford, and that, at any rate, we may be thankful for." Nor did the Cambridge man anticipate any serious change in inter-'Varsity relations:--

As to ourselves at Cambridge, why, I fancy we shall be able to rub along quite comfortably, thank you. If I may use a commercial expression, we've got our own line of Australians and Canadians and Americans, and even of Afrikanders, and I think we shall be able to continue business at the old shop in the old style without any of the new-fangled additions that Mr. Rhodes has conferred upon Oxford. I'll wager that when fifty years are past we shall still be able to meet you on the river, at cricket, at football, nay, even at chess and billiards, on the same terms of average equality. And in after life we shall still manage to compete.

This letter, by the way, was virtually a rejoinder to a set of verses, published a few weeks earlier, in which _Punch_ indulged in a fantastic forecast of the results of the invasion of the Rhodes scholars--including an entire revision of the system of examinations in accordance with the terms of Mr. Rhodes's will. The Craven would be awarded for manliness and the Ireland for muscle:--

Then at last shall Oxford Greats men Really be Imperial statesmen.

The sequel has shown that the views ascribed to the Cambridge don were much nearer the mark.

[Sidenote: _The Awakening of Oxford_]

In 1904 _Punch_ ranged himself unfalteringly on the side of compulsory Greek. Oxford had decided to retain it, and _Punch_, garbed as a Hellenic sage, appeals to Cambridge not to be outdone in loyalty to the old faith by her sister. It is hard to avoid reading into the cartoon "Breaking the Charm" in 1909 more than _Punch_ meant to express. Lord Curzon, as the Fairy Prince, is seen, with his Memorandum on University Reform, appealing to the Sleeping Beauty in Matthew Arnold's phrase, "Awake, adorable dreamer!" Of course, the "adorable dreamer" was bound to be pictorially represented by a woman, but recent concessions have lent a special significance to the awakening. Strange to say, the most powerful and eloquent impeachment of the intrusion of women into Oxford comes from the New World; from the pen of the most brilliant of American essayists--Mr. Paul Elmer More. "With petticoats," he writes of Oxford, "came the world and the conventions of the world; manners were softened, the tongue was filed, angles of originality were ironed out; the drawing-room conquered the cloister."

_Punch's_ practical abandonment of the _rôle_ of religious controversialist was noticed in the previous volume. In the period under review references to the churches are for the most part confined to the part they played in connexion with the Education Bills already mentioned. The echoes of the "No Popery" campaign had so far died down that, on the publication in 1898 of Mr. Wilfrid Ward's review of Cardinal Wiseman's life, _Punch's_ notice was not merely sympathetic but laudatory. "The storm that arose in England on his return from Rome to England with the rank of Cardinal was sufficient to have blown a punier man clean off the island. The Cardinal stood four square to it and lived it down." This is a notable tribute from _Punch_, who had blown and stormed with the best of the Cardinal's assailants. As for the now forgotten but once notorious "Kensitite" demonstrations, _Punch's_ attitude is seen in his advertisement printed in the same year:--

_To Prize-Fighters and others._--Wanted, MUSCULAR CHRISTIANS to act as sidesmen; used to _mêlées_ and capable of using their fists. Liberal terms. Free doctor. Pensions in case of personal injury. Apply, stating qualifications, to High Church Clerical Agency, Kensiton, W.

_A propos_ of muscular Christians, in 1900 _Punch_ mentions that a country curate had recently received notice to quit because though unexceptionable in other respects, his vicar declared that "what this parish really needs is a good fast bowler with a break from the off." Modern clerical methods of acquiring popularity were satirized in 1905. A Congregational minister had taken part in a theatrical performance, and _Punch_ gave a burlesque account of a bishop appearing at a music-hall in a travesty of _Hamlet_ for the benefit of a Decayed Curates' Fund.

[Sidenote: _Anti-Clericalism in France_]

Bishops and deans have done wonderful things of late years, but this particular forecast remains fortunately unfulfilled hitherto. To 1906 belongs one of the few cartoons in this period in which the relations of Church and State are directly referred to. For this was the year in which the French Government cancelled the Concordat and laid an interdict on the Religious Orders. The policy found no favour from _Punch_. In "The Triumph of Democracy" he showed a French priest, a dignified figure, standing outside a doorway guarded by a French soldier, and bearing the notice: "République Française. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Entrée interdite au Clergé."

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 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 the nursery," _Punch_ quoted back at her "Ouida's" statement that "the New Woman was an unmitigated bore," and went on:--

[Sidenote: _The New Womanhood_]

There is a New Woman, and what do you think? She lives upon nothing but Foolscap and Ink! But, though Foolscap and Ink form the whole of her diet, This nagging New Woman can never be quiet!

The ironical protest registered by _Punch_ against ladies who insisted on travelling in smoking carriages and then objected to smoking, only serves to show how far we have travelled in the last thirty years. Another passing phase in the history of sex-antagonism is to be found in the record of the first of many dinners at which only literary ladies were allowed to be present. _Punch_ printed a letter signed "A Daughter of Eve who remembers Adam," who observed that "the Literary Ladies' Dinner of the 1st of June only needed one feature to be absolutely perfect--the presence of Gentlemen." Whether the letter was _bonâ fide_ or not, it probably expressed the view of the majority of those present. The more violent the manifestations of the New Womanhood, the more reactionary became _Punch's_ attitude. His reaction reached a culminating point in 1894, when he painted the following sketch of "A Modern Madame":--

She has aspirations after the impossible, and is herself far from probable; she regards her husband as an unnecessary evil, and her children as disturbances without compensating advantages.

She writes more than she reads and seldom scribbles anything.

She has no feelings, and yet has a yearning after the intense.

She is the antithesis of her grandmother, and has made further development in generations to come quite impossible.

She thinks without the thoughts of a male, and yet has lost the comprehension of a female.

To sum up, she is hardly up to the standard of a man, and yet has sunk several fathoms below the level of a woman.

So again he reverts to his older views on Education _à propos_ of the "Pioneers":--

Ah, learn whate'er you will, yet spare our hearts A home-grown, feminine Baboo of Arts. Believe it, envious maids, the men you spurn Think little of the honours that they earn. Too well they're taught in common sense's rules To dwell upon their triumphs in the Schools, And chiefly prize the Baccalaureate fur Because, in love's young days, it pleases Her. But you, in purpose tyrannously strong, Get, in each effort, your perspective wrong. Learn all you wish to learn, exult in learning, For Hymen's torch keep midnight oil a-burning, Bulge your fair foreheads with those threatening bumps, Ungraceful as an intellectual mumps, Be blatant, rude, self-conscious as you can, Be all you feign--and imitate--in Man, Spurn all the fine traditions of the past, Be New or nothing--what's the gain at last?

You know as much, with hard-eyed, harsh-voiced joy, As the shock-headed, shambling fifth-form boy; Adding, what his sound mind would never please, An Asiatic hunger for degrees. True learning's that alone whereon are based Clear insight, reason, sympathy, and taste. Not relic-worshipping of bones long dry, Not giving puppet-life to x and y, And walking haughtily a fair world through Because some girls can't do the sums you do. Still less, the little, little world of cliques, Where Mutual Admiration dons the breeks, And then proceeds kind tolerant man to flout-- A petulant, unresented Barring-out.

Meanwhile our faith looks on, devoid of fear, Facing the hatchet of the Pioneer. Still will the storm, in Nature's potent plan, Be temper'd to the shorn, or bearded, man. Your sex will still be perfect in its place, With voice of melody and soul of grace. Pose, lecture, worry, copy as you will, Man will be man, and woman woman still!

[Sidenote: _The Real New Woman_]

By way of reducing the "misanthropic" attitude of some of the "New Women" to absurdity, _Punch_ reported a probably apocryphal dialogue between two men: "I say, old man, is it true that your wife has been asked to resign at the Omphale Club?" "Well, yes; you see, the Committee found out that she'd been guilty of ungentlemanly conduct." But what exasperated _Punch_ most of all was the decadent preciosity of the irregulars who espoused the cause of the New Womanhood. One need only mention "The Woman who Wouldn't Do," illustrated _à la_ Beardsley, where "Yellow Book" morality is burlesqued in the phrase "marriage is a degrading system, nurtured under the purple hangings of the tents of iniquity." These moods of disgust seldom lasted long. _Punch_ was no wholesale hater of modernity, and in his verses on "The Real New Woman" frankly admitted that there was much in her to admire. One notes a change of ideal in the absence of any mention of her cooking qualifications; and in the admission that "she's splendid at seeing a joke," _Punch_ acknowledges a great advance on the buxom but humourless damsels of Leech. The first mention of a Ladies' Football Club in 1895 brings home to us the fact that what passed for prejudice in 1895 with enthusiastic advocates of sex equality has been confirmed by the judgment of those best qualified to judge down to 1921.

_Punch's_ epigram on woman's "Asiatic hunger for degrees" represents a passing mood rather than his general attitude to the demand. "The lady students of the Universities," wrote _The Times_ on March 13, 1896, "have received a cruel series of rebuffs in the last few days. On Tuesday week the Congregation of the University of Oxford refused to admit them to the B.A. degree. On Tuesday last it followed up this blow by rejecting all the resolutions proposed as alternatives. Yesterday the Cambridge Senate inflicted the unkindest cut of all by practically imitating the ungallant example of Oxford." Yet, instead of exulting over their defeat, _Punch_ was decidedly sympathetic in his cartoon of Minerva, with her owl in a cage, met at the gates of the Oxford Schools by a corpulent bespectacled Don, who observes, "Very sorry, Miss Minerva, but perhaps you are not aware that this is a monastic establishment." One notes a certain inconsistency in _Punch's_ condemning women for their disregard of the fine art of gastronomy, preferring "a tray on a rickety side-table" or the haphazard arrangements of a picnic to regularity and comfort at meals, and almost in the same breath rebuking them for flouting the sweet domesticities of home and indulging in extravagant pleasures in public. Another interesting sign of the times is recorded a couple of years later in "The Modern Woman's _Vade Mecum_"--showing a reaction against the old notion that the blue stocking must be above any regard for appearances. Here the governing idea is that cleverness need not be divorced from fascination; that fine heads should be covered with pretty toques; that pince-nez are more becoming than spectacles; and that literary women should not neglect fashion journals or sacrifice toilet to intellect. The allusion in the same year (1898) to a Women's Club consisting exclusively of women who would not marry because they could not find husbands intellectual enough to suit them, was probably an exaggeration. But there were Feminist stalwarts who virtually expressed that view; just as there were enthusiasts of "mixed hockey," then beginning to come into fashion, who may not have been entirely uninfluenced by a matrimonial motive.

The proposal to allow women to hold municipal office, included in the Local Government Bill, was vetoed in 1899, but not before _Punch_ had issued a pictorial forecast of a procession, headed by the Right Worshipful the Lady Mayor, with female mace-bearer, sword-bearer, Town Clerk and "she-rives." The Cecil family have been of late years active in support of the Woman Suffrage Movement, but Lord Salisbury was no feminist. In 1899 Colonel Denny introduced a Bill making the provision of seats for shop assistants compulsory. _Punch_ describes how this modest measure was "turned down" in the Lords on the initiative of the Prime Minister, who scented in the concession possibilities of a revolt of domestic servants. In 1900 the "New Woman," i.e. the heroine of the "Woman who Did" type, is described as moribund if not defunct. The fashion of knickerbockers went out with the century. Women chauffeurs, however, make their appearance in 1900, and the correct designation for them is discussed. But for a couple of years women's claims and pretensions were largely submerged by the War. There was a strange product much in evidence at the Mount Nelson Hotel, Cape Town, but Punch overlooked the vagaries which were admirably satirized in a once famous Limerick:--

There was a young lady of Berwick, Whose conduct was highly hysteric. She followed the guns And distributed buns To the men who were down with enteric.

[Sidenote: _The Housewife's Burden_]

The Club movement was spreading rapidly, and the founding of the "Ladies' Army and Navy Club" in 1902 prompts a burlesque on the qualifications insisted on for membership in the Ladies' Athenæum, Conservative, Travellers' and Bachelors' Clubs. _Punch_ again sounds the plea for the revival of domesticity in the "Prayer of a Lady Principal" addressed to Oxford Women Students, with apologies to Mr. Kipling:--

Take up the housewife's burden-- All ye whose schools are done, Who let your foolish fancy dwell On thoughts of coming fun. Put _Games for Girls_ upon the shelf With Jowett, Jebb, and Gow; Be Mrs. Beeton's Homely Hints Your _vade mecum_ now.

Take up the housewife's burden-- No lofty rule of queens, But long and sordid service-- The slave to ways and means. Have done with flighty folly! Throw off your infant past! 'Tis yours to cope with butcher's bills, To make the mutton last.

Take up the housewife's burden-- The truceless wars of peace; Go, humour whimsy housemaids, And wait your cook's caprice. And when your hopes are highest (When both ends nearly meet), Your lord's untimely lavishness Shall all your thrift defeat.

Take up the housewife's burden-- Ye shall not shun the call; Nor cry too loud on Culture, When darns and dusting pall. Go, face the test of wifehood-- To wield the adoring rod, And treat a Man as merely Half baby and half god.

The then fashionable alternative is ironically extolled in an irreverent parody of Kingsley's lines, as adapted for a Young Lady's album:--

Be smart, dear girl, and let who will be other; Break from the fold, not stick there like a lamb; So shall your lot, as maid and wife and mother, Be one Grand Slam.

An article by Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick in the _Cornhill_, on English and Teuton domestic ideals, served _Punch_ in 1904 as the text for a ballad comparing the thrifty German _Hausfrau_ with the extravagant English wife. The infatuated writer sums up entirely in favour of the dainty, decorative Dolly as against the patient, industrious, but dowdy Grisel. Yet in the same year _Punch_ was much exercised with the inevitable decline of chivalry:--

Doubtless the better sort would gladly nourish Those notions which occur in Arthur's tale; Doubtless Romance might still contrive to flourish, Changing its knightly for its Daily Mail, If Woman would but give our modern gallants A livelier chance to ventilate their talents.

Men ride abroad in rubbered automobiles, Naked of armour, bar the nauseous smell, Not bound on any ransom save to owe bills Contracted by some errant damosel, So that in Carlton's Halls, superbly gowned, She may adorn their Dinner-table Round:

But here their service ends. They fain would wrestle With horrid dragons or a heathen crew; Ride _ventre à terre_ to help the weaker vessel, Behaving just as Lancelot used to do; Only you cannot keep it up much longer When once the weaker sex becomes the stronger.

[Sidenote: _Matrons and Militants_]

An equally interesting feature of the times was what might be alternatively called the Revolt or the Apotheosis of Middle Age. Perhaps the first mention of what threatened to be an unfair competition of the matron with the maid is to be found in the verses in 1896, where we read of the modern woman:--

If married and mother she yet plays her part, With six charming children she still must look "smart," For, judging by facts, what Society likes Is a maid who is bold, and a matron who bikes.

Golf and dancing, however, were the great opportunities of the young middle-aged women who refused to retire to the shelf as in early Victorian days. In 1904 _Punch_ printed a story about golf, in which a maiden aunt "scores" overwhelmingly and turns out to be a champion player, to the confounding of her nephew and niece, a _dénoûment_ beyond imagination's widest stretch twenty years earlier.

With 1905 we plunge into the new phase of the Suffrage question. At the outset _Punch_ was decidedly sympathetic. Note, for example, the cartoon in which a beery working man--a "qualified voter"--addresses a well-dressed, refined-looking woman: "Ah, you may pay rates an' taxes, and you may 'ave responserbilities an' all; but when it comes to _votin'_, you must leave it to _us men_!" In a brief year _Punch_ was thoroughly estranged by the methods of the militants and their harrying of Ministers. His "Sensible Woman" retorts on her "Shrieking Sister": "_You_ help our cause? Why, you're its worst enemy." Raids on the House of Commons and scenes in the Lobbies and the Ladies' Gallery drove him in the Epilogue to 1906 to take a new line. Since in the course of the Crusade women had descended to man's brutal level, put off their dignity and womanliness, and become "the complete elector"--"why, then, Madam, when you get the franchise, as you will eventually, I shall say to myself--_Serve 'em right_." The name "suffragette" had been coined, and came to stay for about fifteen years, at any rate; _Punch_ tried his hand at a new variant--"the Insuffrabelles." It was still possible to laugh at a movement which intermittently ministered to mirth; as, for example, when a New York correspondent of a London paper wrote as follows:--

"In the course of a sympathetic discussion on the good work done for the cause by the Suffragettes in London at a meeting of a woman's society for political study, Mrs. Cory, a prominent advocate of female equality, gave a definition of a Utopian dream which woman must not rest until she has realized. 'Knowing as I do our ideals,' said Mrs. Cory, 'confident as I am that we shall attain them, I fix my gaze upon the brightening future, hopefully awaiting the time when a woman on trial for her life will be defended by a female lawyer, convicted by a female jury' (the natural result, we presume), 'sentenced by a female judge, consoled by a female chaplain, and executed by a female executioner. Then, and not till then, will she have attained her proper place in the world.'"

_Punch_, with commendable reticence, contents himself with observing, "nothing, however, was said as to which world." In 1907 we encounter a picture describing the embarrassment of an unfortunate man invited to tea at a ladies' club by a lady who had forgotten that the afternoon was consecrated to a "Down with Men" Meeting. In "Cross-examining a Suffragist" _Punch_ dexterously manoeuvres a witness into the admissions (1) that nothing could cause Miss Pankhurst greater suffering than to stay idly at home while other women were demonstrating and going cheerfully to martyrdom; (2) that the greater the suffering, the greater the proof of faith in the Cause. Whereupon his Lordship then delivered judgment as follows:--

That Miss Pankhurst and her family should show their faith in the cause by suffering in the way suggested by _Mr. Punch_. That they should stay quietly at home for a while--keep out of the newspapers--arrange no demonstrations--go to no prison; seeing that this would be a much truer and more effective martyrdom than anything they had done as yet.

[Sidenote: _Argument and Ridicule_]

"And," continued his Lordship, waxing eloquent, "if time hangs heavy on their hands----

"Are there no beggars at the gate, Nor any poor about the lands? Oh! teach the orphan boy to read, Or teach the orphan girl to sew, Pray Heaven for a Woman's heart, And let the Woman's Suffrage go."

From argument _Punch_ turned to burlesque in his imaginary forecast "The Fight for Childhood Suffrage in 1927." One cannot blame him for making capital out of a misprint in which the various suffrage societies were credited with "tactics that differ, but whose aims lead to the same _gaol_." But argument and ridicule were powerless to influence the extremists. The moderates did not always disavow the methods of lawlessness. A highly respected and elderly peeress actually advocated the withdrawal of all subscriptions to charitable objects until women should be given the vote. A steady _crescendo_ in violence marks the progress of the campaign in 1908. "How long," asks _Punch à propos_ of "domiciliary" visits and raids, "are our Cabinet Ministers to be made the sport of clamorous women? Cattle-driving in Ireland, deplorable as a form of popular pastime, is a trifle compared with this new sport of Cabinet Minister-hunting?" This new sport, however, was only in its infancy. Meanwhile the merry game of martyrdom went on. One day, so ran the recital of her prison experiences given by a released Suffragette, "we organized a grand lark. We all agreed to roar like hungry animals at dinner-time. We made a fearful noise." After this, remarks the sardonic _Punch_, "we hope we shall hear no more of women being devoid of a sense of humour." But even at this early stage of the campaign _Punch_ seems to have realized that, apart from the merits of the case, the victory would rest with the side which made itself the greater public nuisance until its wish was granted. Mr. Asquith is shown in the summer of 1908 with a Suffragette playing the Beggar-maid to his Cophetua, and saying, "'This beggar-maid shall be my Queen'--that is, if there's a general feeling in the country to that effect." A couple of weeks later Mr. Haldane, "thinking Territorially" as he watches a procession of Suffragettes, enviously observes, "If I could only get the _men_ to come forward like this!" On the whole, _Punch_ jibes impartially and genially at Suffragists and anti-Suffragists alike. There is an ominous reference in the summer of 1908 to the remark of a stone-thrower: "It will be bombs next time," but pictorially, at any rate, _Punch_ was inclined to make light of the persecution of Ministers and M.P.s.

[Sidenote: _The Coming of the "Flapper"_]

In a cartoon at the end of the year, by an inversion of the classical legend, "Persea" (the anti-Suffragist League) is shown coming to the rescue of Mr. Asquith as "Andromedus," while the spirit of Milton is invoked in a mock-heroic sonnet, after Wordsworth:--

England hath need of thee: she is a den Of roaring lions--women _versus_ men.

To 1908 also belongs _Punch's_ recognition of the advent of the Flapper, whose intrusions and insubordinations are happily hit off in "The New Autocrat":--

Ere hockey had shown her what sport meant, Ere yet she grew giddy and pert, She doted on dolls and deportment, And only came down for dessert: Her sisters would apprehend no sting From one so exceedingly green, Nor jibbed at the casual toasting Of bashful fifteen.

Her tastes were not always considered; She seldom got more than her share; And parents, whenever the kid erred, Brought suitable pressure to bear! But gone is the rule of the hoar head; Old age is dismissed with a grunt; And youth's irrepressible forehead Has come to the front!

O wormwood and gall to our women! O torture far worse than the rack, To find that the smartest of trim men Are off on a different tack: For both at the helm and the prow, too, There lolls an unspeakable chit, And Thirty now learns she must bow to Fourteen and a bit!

Her locks are confined by a ribbon; Her language is open and free; She talks like a parrot, she's glib on The problems that petrify me; Her phrases are novel; to-day, what I marvel at most are the queer Little statements she clinches with "Eh, what!" Tacked on to "Old dear!"

Though chaperons tell her where minxes Are certain to go when they die, A sequence of eloquent winks is Her sole and sufficient reply; Though dowagers, itching to slap her, Would send her in tears to her bed, The simply ineffable Flapper Goes smiling instead!

And yet, when reflective December Repines at the pertness of May, Sweet solace it is to remember She too has her time of decay: She too, when she starts to put flesh on, Will take a subordinate post, While babies, devoid of discretion, Are ruling the roast!

The Flapper was destined to assume a more aggressive aspect in later years--_vide_ Dr. Shadwell's indictment in the _Nineteenth Century_--but _Punch's_ concluding reflections hold good. Her attitude towards the Suffrage movement at this stage was perhaps not unfairly summed up in the remark of a younger sister who declared that she did not want women to get the vote, because she "liked hearing about the Suffragettes."

In 1909 the policy of hunger-striking was adopted by the militants; _Punch_ refers to it, but cannot be blamed for failing to realize the disastrous possibilities of what proved to be perhaps the most sinister legacy of the Suffragist extremists to the forces of disorder. In 1910 he waxes ironical over Lady Cook's suggestion that it would be wiser for the men to capitulate at once. Their rule, she asserted, was nearly over; but, if and when the tables were turned, women must not retaliate but resist all attempts to humiliate and degrade men. This magnanimity only excited _Punch's_ mirth; and the advertisement in a weekly paper: "Lady, having quarrelled with all her friends, desires to meet another in same position," impelled him to devise the rules for a "Mutual Aggravation Society" for the special benefit of the more militant Suffragettes, misogamists and man-haters. _Punch_, I may note in passing, acknowledged the enterprise of the woman aviator, _à propos_ of an announcement in the _Daily Mail_ that already "Five women can fly," but deplored their unsightly kit, which suggested an Esquimaux in goggles.

[Sidenote: _Cabinet Cleavage_]

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":--

[Sidenote: _Motors and Motorists_]

PRESENT TENSE

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

IMPERFECT TENSE

I was moting. Thou wast trying to steer. He was carrying a red flag in front. We were going four hours a mile. Ye were cussing like anything. They were giving it up as a bad job.

In 1897 _Punch's_ doggerel verses on "Motor-car-acteristics" are entirely disparaging to the new mode of locomotion, on the score of noise, smell and risk. With the new century the question of control became urgent, and while _Punch_ burlesques the grandmotherly restrictions adopted by some local authorities, his "Merry Motorist's Lament" in 1901 is aimed at the selfishness of those who resented the claims of pedestrians, horses, children, dogs, etc., to the use of the roads. Policemen were already employed to time the speed of motorists, but no distinguishing numbers were yet carried. To 1902 belong the first illustrations of the motor-bicycle and of "trailers" attached to the "push-bike." Breakdowns and the wearisomeness of motoring "shop" form the theme of verses in 1903. The adoption of the word "chauffeur" is resented by _Punch_ on patriotic grounds; but while suggesting various alternatives for the word "road-hog," which had now come into use, he has no mercy for the nuisance which had called it into being. When the speed limit was abolished in this year, _Punch_ vigorously opposed the concession, and in the text to his cartoon suggests that the true remedy was to be found in limiting the power of the engines. From this date onward the motor-car, being more or less firmly established as an integral part of the locomotive system, passes from the domain of the abnormal, and is superseded as a theme for speculation and prophecy by the airship and the aeroplane.

_Punch's_ first picture of a flying machine in this period occurs in the autumn of 1894. The mechanism is, however, purely fanciful, and the design more remote from the actuality of 1908 than that which I have reproduced in Vol. I., p. 73. The _Annual Register_ for 1900 records under date July 2 the flight of Count Zeppelin's airship from Friedrichshafen to Immenstaad on the Lake of Constance--a distance of three and a half miles. In the following year _Punch's_ "leaves from an aeronaut's diary", though purely farcical, are yet of interest as the earliest reference in his pages to flying in a "dirigible" as a _fait accompli_. How modest _Punch's_ prophecies were in regard to speed may be judged from his picture--at about the same date--of an aerial "bobby" arresting people for flying at thirty miles an hour! The flying motor-cab represented in 1902 belongs to the realm of uncircumstantial imagination, but in 1906, though ballooning is still spoken of as a fashionable amusement and is recommended, under the heading "If Pigs had wings," to road-hogs in search of a new thrill, a note of realism is struck by the use of the word "aeroplane" and reference to the £10,000 prize offered for the first airship flight from London to Manchester. The picture of aeroplanes at the close of this year recalls the Japanese box-kite. _Punch_ was evidently a little lax in his terminology. The balloon he commended to the "road-hog" probably meant the airship, for he almost simultaneously speaks of the passing of the old gas balloon, and when in 1907 _Punch_ published a design for a new penny piece "in accordance with Britannia's aerial ambitions," Britannia is shown in mid-air in what is apparently the car of an airship, certainly not the old "basket" of a balloon.

If _Punch_ failed in 1908--the _annus mirabilis_ of the Conquest of the Air--to recognize the paramount claims of the Brothers Wright, it must be borne in mind that the notorious aversion from publicity shown by those pioneers, and the deliberate secrecy with which they had conducted their experiments, kept them for a while out of the limelight. Mr. Farman's exploits in the early months of 1908 are duly celebrated in the cartoon in which Icarus, watching a biplane, says: "Confound that fellow! I wish _I'd_ thought of that!" But though Mr. Farman's efforts were completely eclipsed by those of Orville Wright in America and Wilbur Wright at Le Mans in France, in September, October and December, _Punch_ only gradually awoke to the fact. The reference to Wilbur Wright on September 16 conveys no clear acknowledgment of his achievement. He is, however, by implication promoted to importance three weeks later when we read amongst various "Messages from the Dead" the statement of Icarus: "The word aeroplane is a monstrosity to Elysian ears, and the mere mention of W(ilbur) W(right) puts me in a wax. Anyhow, no sea can be called after a man with such a name." An allusion in the following week to Wilbur Wright's avoidance of the "snap-shooter" helps to explain how it came about that he never figured in a cartoon. M. Bleriot's first cross-Channel flight in 1909 made a prodigious stir, and _Punch_ chronicled it in the figure of "Winged Victory" landing on the cliffs at Dover.

Wireless telegraphy makes its _début_ in the pages of _Punch_ in 1894, when the verses "Hail, Columbia!" associate it with the name of Nikola Tesla, the electrician, born on the borders of Austria and Hungary, who migrated to the States in 1884. Five years later the Fairy Electricity, armed with wireless, gives warning to submarine cables and land telegraphs that she won't be able to keep them much longer. _Punch_ was here a previous prophet; but he showed a decidedly "intelligent anticipation" in his article on "Marconigrams" in January, 1902, where he predicted accurately enough some of the drawbacks involved in the tapping of messages by "receivers" other than those for which they were intended. The word "Marconigram"--in itself a tribute to the predominance of Signor Marconi's "system"--was then brand-new. _Punch's_ use of it antedates by a week the earliest reference quoted in Murray.

The name of Marconi was for several years unfortunately mixed up with a resounding politico-financial scandal, arising out of a traffic in shares in which the inventor was never even remotely implicated. _Punch_, therefore, had an extra reason for acknowledging his great services to humanity in the "S.O.S." cartoon in October, 1913, when a great disaster was averted by a wireless message from a liner in distress.

[Sidenote: _The Submarine of Fancy and Fact_]

Until the beginning of the new century _Punch's_ treatment of the submarine was mainly fantastic with intermittent moments of misgiving. The former mood prevails in his burlesque sequel to Jules Verne's _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_, printed in 1899, in which Esterhazy and Du Paty de Clam (notorious personages in the Dreyfus "affaire") are introduced along with "Captain Nemo." The submarine was at the moment chiefly associated in the public mind with Jules Verne's romance, and on that very account was perhaps treated less seriously than it deserved. Jules Verne, as we now know, was aggrieved that his countrymen did not recognize him as a scientific writer. But French engineers and inventors were busy with the problem, and in 1900 M. Rousseau's "submersible" inspired _Punch_ with a cartoon in which Neptune warns Britannia of the new menace to her rule, while Britannia replies that she is not asleep. The heading "Rousseau's Dream" certainly implies scepticism, but little more than a year later _Punch_, in May, 1901, had come to recognize the grim actualities of the new branch of the Navy:--

THE SONG OF THE SUB-MARINED

A life 'neath the ocean wave, A home in the rolling deep, That the billows never lave Though the currents never sleep. Where the whiting come and tap On the porthole's misty pane, And the congers bark and snap In a dogfish-like refrain.

A life 'mid the flowing tide, A home in the sunless sea, In a ship with a porpoise hide That ever concealed must be. A perpetual game of nap On the ocean's ill-made bed; There one's feet get soft as pap Where the sole alone may tread.

Oh, well for the collier lad As he curses his garb of grime! Oh, well for the man nigh mad With the heat in a torrid clime! O! well for the dark Lascar In the sea of ice or snow! But alas! without sun or moon or star, For the mariner down below!

Sir Percy Scott's warning on the eve of the war of 1914, as I notice elsewhere, was not taken seriously by _Punch_. To go back to 1901, it was in that year that an acute controversy raged over the efficiency of the "Belleville" tubular boilers, but _Punch_ contented himself with merely registering the conflicting views of the experts.

[Sidenote: _Röntgen Rays and Radium_]

The discovery of the Röntgen rays in 1896 and of radium in 1903 are not absolutely neglected; but that is about all that can be said of _Punch's_ frivolous comments on these momentous new-comers. On the other hand, the possibilities and abuses of the cinematograph were his constant preoccupation from 1896 onwards. _Punch_ attended an exhibition given by a M. Trewey in that year, and, while making play with the exhibitor's name, was sufficiently up-to-date to allude to the "Pictures" and to foresee the inevitable abbreviation of their classical title. In 1901, under the heading "What it must never come to," _Punch_ only too correctly foreshadowed the vulgarity and indecorum of the film play in later years.

Nearly half a century earlier _Punch_ had chronicled the flight of the "Wild geese" to the gold diggings in California and Australia. Later on South Africa had become the lure to all who suffered from the _auri sacra fames_. In 1897 it was the turn of the New World again, and Klondyke and the Yukon were words on every lip. The old story of fortunes and failures was once more repeated, though not on so large a scale, and _Punch_ summed up its lessons in his pessimistic picture of exhausted diggers in Arctic surroundings lying at the feet of a sinister skeleton figure guarding a great gold nugget.

In the domain of non-commercial exploration three phases are to be noted: Nansen's "Farthest North" in the 'nineties, Peary's Conquest of the North Pole in 1909, and the Antarctic tragedy of 1912. Nansen's gallant effort was happily above criticism; and his fame, won in this arduous field, has of late been enhanced by his disinterested and humane persistence in the relief of the victims of the Great War. Peary's triumph, though great and incontrovertible, was clouded at the time by the extraordinary controversy which arose out of the rival claim of another American explorer, Dr. Cook. His story, according to which he had reached the Pole before Peary, was accepted at Copenhagen and did not lack a certain amount of American backing. In his earliest comments on the contradictory reports _Punch_ preserved an attitude of judicious caution, tempered with ironic satisfaction that the rival claimants were both Americans. But the publication of Dr. Cook's narrative converted this suspense of judgment into incredulity and even ridicule. The name of Dr. Cook's chief native witness, "Etukishook," was, to put it mildly, unfortunate. _Punch's_ final comment took the form of a cartoon in which the American Eagle was shown sitting on the top of the "Big Nail" and complacently remarking: "My Pole, anyway!"

[Sidenote: _The Antarctic Tragedy_]

From Dr. Cook's narrative to the journals of Captain Scott is a step from the ridiculous to the sublime. Here, again, there had been rivalry, but rivalry without dispute. The goal had been reached by Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, only a few weeks before Scott and his four companions, Captain Oates, Dr. Wilson, Lieutenant Bowers and Petty Officer Evans--all of them "names to resound for ages." In March, 1912, "Captain Scott and his gallant comrades reached the South Pole and died on their homeward way." With this brief sentence _Punch_ prefaces his memorial verses on what was at once the most tragic and heroic episode in all the long annals of Polar exploration:--

Not for the fame that crowns a gallant deed, They fixed their fearless eyes on that far goal, Steadfast of purpose, resolute at need To give their lives for toll.

But in the service of their kind they fared, To probe the secrets which the jealous Earth Yields only as the prize of perils dared, The wage of proven worth.

So on their record, writ for all to know-- The task achieved, the homeward way half-won-- Though cold they lie beneath their pall of snow, Shines the eternal sun.

O hearts of metal pure as finest gold! O great example, where our sons may trace, Too proud for tears, their birthright from of old, Heirs of the Island Race!

In this context I may note two great disasters, the one at the beginning and the other at the end of this period, which served to illustrate the "price of Admiralty" and the perils of speed when combined with enormous size and structure of a type in which design has outrun strength. The first was the loss of the _Victoria_ in the manoeuvres off Tripoli in 1893, owing to an error in judgment on the part of a great admiral--Sir George Tryon. The second was the loss of the _Titanic_ in April, 1912. _Punch_ in both instances confined himself to the expression of sympathy and condolence, without endeavouring to draw morals or recalling, _à propos_ of the _Titanic_, his curious prophecy, given in an earlier volume, of the likelihood of just such a disaster resulting from the cult of speed at all costs and in all weathers.

The perils of the sea naturally suggest the means of endeavouring to avoid them. After a long interval the Channel Tunnel scheme was revived in 1906, and in his cartoon in January, 1907, _Punch_ indicates that it was calculated "a double debt to pay." Neptune is shown objecting to have his power undermined, but Britannia retorts: "I want to see more of my friends over there, and I never look my best when I've been seasick." So again, in August, 1913, under the heading "The Entente Tube," when the steward on a night Channel boat observes, "If they bring in this 'ere tunnel, my job's gone," _Punch_ replies, "That's the only sound objection I've heard yet."

[Sidenote: _Punch's Prophecies_]

_Punch's_ forecasts and prophecies are mentioned under various headings, but two may be specially noted here. In 1909 a foreign officer (obviously a German) is depicted by Mr. George Morrow in the car of an airship "after dropping a shell with the idea of destroying London." "Tut! tut!" he observes, "I've missed it." The second picture, in October, 1910, is of "The New Arm and how to use it," and illustrates the conversion of a number of soldiers, by the device of opening umbrellas of a peculiar pattern, into what the approaching air-scout takes to be a field dotted with gigantic flowers. But, as I showed in an earlier volume, _Punch_ described the principle of _camouflage_ in full detail about half a century before it was carried into practice.

CHANGING LONDON

[Sidenote: _Cabs v. Taxis_]

London underwent many notable changes, structural and otherwise, between 1892 and 1914, but perhaps the most remarkable were brought about by the engineer rather than by the architect. Macadam had yielded to asphalt, and now asphalt largely gave place to the wood pavement. Electric lighting became general, and with the "electrification" of the old Underground a favourite source of well-founded complaint was finally removed. But the conspicuous and outstanding feature of London traffic in this period was the coming of the Tubes, while above ground it was revolutionized by the motor, and the passing to a great extent of horse-drawn vehicles. As early as 1902 Mr. Briton Rivière uttered a lament over the disappearance of the horse from London traffic. His point of view was quite intelligible, but it was purely artistic. _Punch_ was a great lover of the "noble animal," but it was precisely for that reason that he welcomed its release from the drudgery and suffering, the maltreatment and overloading inseparable from the old order. The speeding-up of street traffic brought with it new perils and noises, but it freed us from many discomforts and nuisances--for example, the "cab-runner," rampant in the middle 'nineties, who plagued unprotected females by his extortions and insolence until the coming of the taxi ran him off his legs. At the time of the South African War, when _Punch_ noted the commandeering of 'bus horses for service at the front, he declared that there had been hardly any improvement in the public vehicles of London since the days of Shillibeer--the coach-builder who introduced omnibuses to London in 1829. It is true that the drivers were famous for their conversational powers, which motor-bus drivers are unable to exercise owing to their isolation, but only mediævalists can lament the passing of the old lumbering, stuffy 'bus, dimly lit by oil lamps, and in wet weather redolent of damp straw. As for the "growler," _Punch_ was decidedly premature when in 1905, the centenary of the year in which public conveyances first plied for hire in London, he assumed that its reign was over. In 1907 he paid the "growler" the homage of a cartoon in which _Punch_, attended by the shades of John Leech and Charles Keene, admitted that the "Cabby" had been "very useful to him"--as a target for generally hostile criticism. In spite of _Punch's_ repeated valedictions, the "growler" continued to emerge during strikes in later years, and I am not certain whether it can be pronounced to be dead even yet. In 1907, again, there is a curious reference to the now largely disused practice of whistling for cabs. An irritated hansom-cabby observes to a gentleman who has been whistling for a "taximeter cab" for ten minutes--in series of three whistles--"Try _four_ whistles, guv'nor, and p'r'aps you'll get an airship." The whistling code had first of all to be revised so as to establish the precedence of the "taxi," and then was simplified by the disappearance of the "growler" and the hansom. In this context may be quoted the epitaph based on the fact that a French traveller had taken "Job Masters" to be a personal name, and published in 1909:--

His horses were old and his carriages were older, But they were all we could get and we had to put up with them. His watchwords were Livery and Bait, and he will be sadly missed. His end was Petrol.

[Sidenote: _The L.C.C. Trams_]

On the vexed question of the extension of the tramway system to central London _Punch_ did not maintain an inflexible consistency. In 1905 he supported the L.C.C. in their effort to carry the tram system across Westminster Bridge and along the Embankment, and when their Bill, passed in the Commons, was thrown out by the Lords, he showed Lord Halsbury, the leader of the Opposition on this occasion, as an out-of-date Horatius, _Punch_ informing him that "this isn't ancient Rome. This is modern London, and you've just got to move on." Yet in 1907 the congestion of empty trams between Blackfriars and Westminster Bridge moved him to ridicule the L.C.C.'s "Spectacular Vacuum Embankment Trams," and to paint a fancy portrait of a grocer's assistant who had actually succeeded in riding in one of them. Later on, again, on the eve of the War, _Punch_ made it clear that he had no sympathy with the L.C.C. in their obstinate preference for trams as opposed to motor-buses. The L.C.C. tram was "beaten on points" by its more flexible rival. "Hard lines on me," says the tram. "Yes," retorts the motor-bus, "it's always hard lines with you, my boy. That's what's the matter; you can't side-step."

But the coming of the new order in London locomotion dates appropriately from the year 1900. Early in that year _Mr. Punch_ describes his experiences on a trip from the Monument to Stockwell in what he calls the "Sardine-box railway," dwelling on the scrimmages of passengers and the rocking of the trains, and endorsing the company's advertisement that it was the "warmest line in London." Criticism gives place to eulogy in the summer, when the fairy "Electra" gives the Steam Locomotive Underground Demon notice to quit, and _Punch_ adopts the phrase, "The Twopenny Tube," from his lively but short-lived contemporary the _Londoner_. "Horace in London" indites a "Carmen Tubulare" in honour of the new Underground, and a burlesque article is based on the notion that the ozone generated in the Tubes would lead to a monstrous growth of appetite. The new and highly irregular verb, "Tu be," is conjugated in all tenses and moods, beginning: "I tube, thou payest tuppence; he Yerkes[6]; we get a hustle on; ye block the gangways; they palm off 'bus tickets." Complaints of over-crowding testified to the popularity of the new method of transit, and the voice of the "strap-hanger" was soon loud in the land. The congestion on the suburban railways had moved one of _Punch's_ bards to poetic remonstrance as early as 1901:--

We wage no far-off conflict with Afridi or with Boer, A present peril we must face, our foes are at the door; Brave must he be of heart, and as a flint must set his face, Who in the train at Finsbury Park would struggle for a place.

[Footnote 6: Charles Tyson Yerkes, the American financier who, after a chequered early life, became a railway magnate and took a leading part in organizing and financing the London electrical railways.]

Six years later _Punch_ describes "rack-hanging" on the suburban lines of the Great Eastern as one stage worse than "strap-hanging" on the Underground. Another and more formidable outcome of the subterranean extension of London traffic was noted in 1913 _à propos_ of the cracks in St. Paul's. _Punch's_ Londoner exults complacently over the impending downfall, so long as he is swiftly transported from his home to his office:--

I thunder down to work each morn, And some historic shrine Must have its matchless fabric torn To get me there at nine;

And when I gather up my traps, As sundown sets me free A nation's monuments collapse, To take me home to tea.

To parody Lord John Manners's couplet:--

Let fanes and monuments in ruins lie, But give us still our new Mobility.

While there was this feverish activity in developing surface and subterranean communications on land, the apathy of the authorities in failing to develop an efficient service of steamboats roused _Punch_ to repeated protests--notably in the cartoon where Father Thames explains to a French visitor: "I ain't allowed to have any boats." In more complacent mood, however, Father Thames ejaculates, "Well, I'm blowed! This quite gets over me," as he surveys the opening in 1894 of the great Tower Bridge, or "the Giant Causeway," as _Punch_ calls it. In 1896 _Punch_ was concerned with the intention of the L.C.C. to do away with Chelsea Reach, and did not disguise his satisfaction when the scheme was "turned down" by a Select Committee. On the other hand, the unkempt and squalid condition of what he sarcastically calls the "Surrey Riviera" suggested a cartoon in January, 1913, exhibiting Father Thames in his filthiest guise saying plaintively, "I know a bank where the foul slime flows."

[Sidenote: _London's New Cathedral_]

The most notable of the structural changes in London in this period was the opening of the new thoroughfare from Holborn to the Strand and the clearing away of the old rookeries at the southern end. Kingsway and Aldwych were the names coined by Sir Laurence Gomme for the thoroughfare and crescent, and could not have been improved on; but _Punch_ exercised his ingenuity in offering a variety of suggestions purporting to be made by famous and notorious personages of the hour: e.g. "Via Marie," "John Lane," etc. Among single buildings the most notable addition was the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, consecrated in 1903. Bentley's masterpiece was the largest and most impressive church erected in London since St. Paul's, which _Punch_, in his irreverent "Lightning Guide" described as "London's largest temple and the biggest Wren's nest ever known." The new internal decoration executed in the early years of this century by the late Sir W. B. Richmond prompted the remark that "the Christian law is upheld in the nave, but the inside of the dome is strictly Mosaic." Mr. Hammerstein's Opera House in Kingsway after a brief allegiance to the serious lyric Muse went the way of other similar ventures. In the autumn of 1912 _Punch_ saw in the vacant theatre a chance for English opera, but his cartoon, "Now or Never," was not exactly optimistic, and the claims of Variety once more triumphed.

When improvements on a large scale are planned and executed it has generally been found impossible to reconcile the demands of High Art with the aims of municipal politics. The appeal of leading artists and architects was powerless to prevent the spoiling of the eastward vista along the chord of the Aldwych arc. So with the scheme of the Victoria Memorial, involving the new road from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace. In the "Finishing Touch" _Punch_ represented the County Councillor blandly correcting London's remonstrance with him for blocking the view. Not a bit of it; he was only improving things: "_ars est celare artem_, you know"--in reference to the action of the "Improvements" Committee of the L.C.C. in allowing the prospect of the Admiralty Arch to be obstructed by a building at the eastern end.

The French have a saying that administrative art is always arid; _Punch_ went further and roundly accused the L.C.C. of Vandalism. In their schemes for widening Piccadilly in 1901 he scented a sinister design of converting it into a tramway route, just as he had foreshadowed the conversion of Rotten Row into a bicycle track in 1895--this, by the way, at a time when bicycling in the Park was only allowed from 10 A.M. till 12 noon. As a faithful champion of the equestrian interest, _Punch_ renewed in 1894 the appeals he had made in earlier years for making more rides in Hyde Park. He was much concerned with the general dirt and disorder which reigned there--the frowsy and immoral loungers, "socialist scamps and somnolent tramps, scoundrels who swear and zealots who groan," and welcomed the new rules in 1896 in the belief that they would exclude tub-thumpers, Salvationists and atheists, "sot and satyr, crank and vandal." _Punch_, in his zeal for maintaining the decencies and amenities of our parks, laid himself open to the charge of an anti-democratic bias. He was, however, sincerely proud of the glories of London, while always ready to denounce the blots on her scutcheon. Sir W. B. Richmond's anti-smoke crusade met with his approval in 1898. Writers who dilated on the fine atmospheric effects of London fog jarred on his robust common sense, but the beauties of Richmond Park in all seasons inspired him to genuine enthusiasm. A lyrical "note" new to his columns is sounded in the charming lines which he printed in 1910:--

Have you been to royal Richmond when the year is growing mellow, And October, mild and fruitful, on its woodland sets her mark, When the footpath--of her bounty--has a carpet red and yellow, And the great harts roar a challenge as the twilight meets the dark, And at half-past five or so, There are lights that flash and glow, Thrilling upward in the quiet out of Kingston down below?

[Sidenote: _The End of the Westminster Aquarium_]

I do not find that _Punch_ in his record of "disappearances" notes the disuse of hatchments, but he duly chronicles at the close of 1895 the termination of the last of the old turnpike trusts on November 1. "Vanishing London" generally moved him to elegy. Over the Lowther Arcade, which was closed in 1898 by the sale of the Crown lease, he did not waste many tears, and the end of the Westminster Aquarium in January, 1903, did not excite any passionate regret. Still, _Punch_ had seen many strange shows and celebrities within its walls--Blondin, Zazel and Zaeo, Slavin and Sullivan, Pongo the Ape, Sandow the strong man, John Roberts the master of the cue; and a certain mitigated melancholy broods over _Punch_ as we watch him

Muse over a pipe of the days that are dead, Dream that once more I am able to scan Closely the bird with the duplicate head, Live once again with the Petrified Man.

It was another matter altogether when _Punch_ heard that Clifford's Inn was to be pulled down in April of the same year. In his indignation he suggests that the Temple Gardens, Middle Temple Hall and Temple Church should forthwith be sacrificed to the craze for improvements, and continues in the same strain of exaggerated irony:--

If you turn the Charterhouse into a railway station, the Tower into warehouses and Westminster Hall into an Inebriates' Home, something will have been done towards making London a happier and a better place.

Another sign of the times which frequently exercised _Punch's_ mind and stimulated his satire was the multiplication of huge new hotels. In 1902, when it was announced that St. James's Hall was about to be pulled down to make room for another of these monsters, _Punch_ pictured Macaulay's New Zealander coming to visit London and finding it entirely composed of hotels and residential flats. The luxury _à l'Américaine_ of these mammoth establishments excited _Punch's_ strictures in 1907; simultaneously he inveighs against the poky and insanitary arrangements of the modern flat.

In earlier years _Punch_ had been prodigal of suggestions for the "improvement" of London; in this period he is more critical than constructive, though I note that in 1904 he reverts to his old suggestion of a great open-air _café_. This, he now proposed, should occupy the ground floor of the Ritz, with a _terrasse_ overlooking Piccadilly and the Green Park. But _Punch_ did not scorn the cheap restaurants, and in one of his "Lays of a Londoner" pays homage to the charms of Soho--a tribute culminating in this admirable stanza:--

Borne on the cosmopolitan breezes Divinely blended odours trickle, The louder forms of foreign cheeses Contend against the home-made pickle.

[Sidenote: _Cromwell and Carlyle_]

On the subject of statues and memorials _Punch_ had always held strong views; views that by no means ministered to national self-satisfaction. When the question of a statue to Cromwell came up once more in 1894, _Punch_ practically repeated his old cut, with a slight variation of treatment, in "Room for a Big One," Cromwell addressing his Royal rivals, "Now then, your Majesties, I hope I don't intrude." In May, 1895, _Punch_ returned to the charge in his most truculent anti-monarchical vein:--

ON THE NEW STATUE

("Her Majesty's Government are about to entrust to one of our first sculptors a great historical statue, which has too long been wanting to the series of those who have governed England."--Lord Rosebery at the Royal Academy Banquet.)

Our "Uncrowned King" at last to stand 'Midst the legitimate Lord's anointed? How will they shrink, that sacred band, Dismayed, disgusted, disappointed! The _parvenu_ Protector thrust Amidst the true Porphyrogeniti? How will it stir right royal dust! The mutton-eating King's amenity Were hardly proof against this slur. William the thief, Rufus the bully, The traitor John, and James the cur-- Their royal purple how 'twill sully To rub against the brewer's buff! Harry, old Mother Church's glory, Meet this Conventicler?--Enough! The Butcher dimmed not England's story, But rather brightened her renown In camp and court, it must be said, And if he did not win a crown, At least he never _lost his head_!

_Punch's_ acid remark made many years before, that we were incapable of producing a fine statue or memorial, is virtually repeated in his suggestion, made in 1896, for the formation of a "Metropolitan Statues Supply Association" for the purpose of supplying public statues and monuments on the hire system. There was certainly good excuse for the burlesque, for, as _Punch_ reminds us, "Mr. Akers-Douglas, replying to Mr. Labouchere as to whether his attention had been called to a statue 'purporting to be of the late Mr. John Bright in the Central Lobby,' and whether it is to remain there, said that it was erected under arrangements made with his predecessors. He admitted that there were very varied views as to its artistic merits."

[Sidenote: _National Heroes and their Memorials_]

In 1902 the fall of the Campanile of St. Mark's at Venice prompts a Trafalgar Square Lion to remark: "I only wish some of our London monuments would come down as easily." In an earlier volume I have mentioned _Punch's_ reiterated complaints of the time taken in completing the Nelson Memorial in Trafalgar Square. In 1903, after fifty years had elapsed, the monument to the Duke of Wellington in St. Paul's was still unfinished. _Punch_ dealt faithfully with this discreditable delay in a caustic perversion of Tennyson's ode, "Bury the Great Duke," and a cartoon in which, under the heading "Ars (Britannica) Longa," Napoleon, hearing from his victor that his monument is approaching completion, sarcastically comments, "Déjà?"

On the question of burials in Westminster Abbey, it may here be added, _Punch_ was clearly not satisfied with the arrangement which left the Dean as the chief arbiter, when he wrote in the summer of 1909:--

For whom shall England's high memorial fane Offer a resting-place of hallowed stone When they have nobly lived their destined span? The nation speaks her choice, but speaks in vain; The final verdict lies with one alone-- A Mr. Robinson, a clergyman.

The "Mr. Robinson," thus disparagingly referred to, was that learned divine, Dean of Westminster from 1902 to 1911, and since then Dean of Wells. It should therefore be remembered that he was Dean of Westminster when Irving was buried in the Abbey.

[Sidenote: "_Our Robert_"]

Mention has already been made of the widening of the Mall as part of the Queen Victoria Memorial. Brock's statue and monumental group were pronounced by _Punch_ in 1911 "worthy of a great Queen and a great City," an acknowledgment truly remarkable in one so chary of approval. Captain Adrian Jones's Peace "Quadriga" on Constitution Hill prompted a burlesque alternative design in 1908, with "four typical pedestrians rampant and a motor-car urgent." In 1912 an old lady is seen asking a policeman, "Is _that_ what they call the Quadruped, officer?" and the obliging Robert replies, "Yes, Mum; all except the lady." Towards "Robert," by the way, _Punch_ was in the main sympathetic and appreciative throughout this period, and in one of the "Lays of a Londoner" pays a generous tribute to the benevolent autocrat of the highway:--

In vain the dray-horse paws the air, The flow of low abuse grows brisker; He never turns an injured hair, Or lifts a deprecating whisker, For he knows well enough that they May gibe, but dare not disobey!

Whether in dark, secluded walks He flouts the schemes that bad men work us; Or maiden ladies, screaming "Lawks!" Hang on his neck in Oxford Circus; His mien displays an abstract calm That soothes the fractured nerves like balm.

Who spoors the burglar's nimble feet, And spots the three-card man's devices? Who hales before the judgment seat The vendor of unwholesome ices? Who's apt at any time to have his Complexion spoiled by hob-nailed navvies?

It is indeed our Robert, or, As some prefer to say, our "Bobby"; The civil servant, paid to floor The wiles of those who'd kill or rob 'ee; Who keeps our premises secure, Our butter and our morals pure.

And when we hear of fresh alarms, Of bombs and mutiny and massacre, Of citizens dispersed by arms, In countries where such things, alas! occur, Well may we urge our Robert's claim Alike to gratitude and fame.

This is a fairly comprehensive summary of the multifarious activities of one who is, or, at any rate, was up to the end of 1918, more of an institution than a man.

Though he lived in or just off Fleet Street, _Punch_ kept an eye on the growth of the charms of Greater London. In 1907 he printed his "Song of Six Suburbs (after Mr. Rudyard Kipling)":--

BRIXTON

Though far outside the radius you roam, Where shall a fairer prospect meet the eyes? Brand-new, like Aphrodite from the foam, The homes of Brixton Rise.

TOOTING

Supreme am I, Suburbia's guiding star, And when I speak let lesser tongues be dumb; The prefix "Upper" shows the class we are; Where Tooting beckons, Come!

HAMPSTEAD

Upon your North-West Passage scale my heights, And mark the joyous crowds that sport beneath; Men call me "Happy": O the strange delights, The dalliance on my Heath!

PECKHAM

A peaceful calm envelops every street, And like an old-world idyll life drifts by; Where else such courtly couples shall you meet A-comin' thro' the Rye?

CLAPHAM

Unto my yoke my stalwarts meekly bend: Daily, between the hours of 8 and 9, To dare worse horrors than the Pit I send Sons of the Chatham line!

EALING

"Last, loveliest, exquisite," I give to those Civilian warriors from India rest; What suburb boasts the dignified repose That clings to Ealing, W.?

Later on the garden suburb is a frequent theme of genial comment and satire based on first-hand observation, for the late Mr. F. H. Townsend was a resident in Golder's Green, and his ingenious pencil found ample scope in the amenities and humours of the new _Rus in Urbe_. Another "garden" that had provoked _Punch_ to less favourable comment in earlier years--Covent Garden--was still a source of dissatisfaction as late as 1904. When John Hollingshead died in the autumn of that year, _Punch_, in his obituary notice of the manager of the Gaiety Theatre, revealed the fact that "his was the dauntless hand that, under _Mr. Punch's_ banner, attacked 'Mud Salad Market' many years ago." If the present condition of Covent Garden market is not exactly ideal, at any rate it does not justify the censures passed on it seventeen years ago as still blocking traffic with congested muck.

In 1912 the London Museum was opened at Kensington Palace, and _Punch_, in a commemorative cartoon, showed London as an old lady examining the cases of the Roman, Saxon and Norman periods. "Bless my soul," she says, "what a life I've led!" And _Punch_ was often more interested in the life she had led than in that she was leading or was about to lead. Her future, as outlined by Sir Aston Webb in January, 1914, seemed to him a charming but somewhat visionary prospect:--

Meanwhile this London is my place; Sad though her dirt, as I admit is, I love the dear unconscious grace That shines beneath her sooty face Better than all your well-groomed cities.