At the beginning of this period foreign travel had ceased to be the exclusive privilege of the "classes." The days of cheap trips to "Lovely Lucerne" were yet to come, but Cook was already a power in the land, and as early as the close of 1874 we find Punch frankly expressing his opinion that travel agencies had assisted to "lower middle-class-Englishize the Continent." The value of travel as a corrective of insularity and a means of promoting a better understanding of our foreign neighbours is not recognized. Residence on the Continent was another matter, and the series of articles, "Elizabeth's residence in a French country house," indicate the possibilities of enlightenment on various points. In particular stress is laid on the fact that there was no spoiling of women in France; in that country they were the real workers. At home the increase of excursion trains only served to excite Punch's wrath against their discomfort and overcrowding and the greed of directors. Yet these drawbacks did not prevent impecunious or economical aristocrats from travelling third class, though their domestics had to go first.

The everlasting servant problem recurs again and again in the 'eighties. Complaints of inadequate wages are seldom heard. In 1876 Punch refers to a letter of Charles Reade on the comparative luxury of the lives of servants contrasted with those of dressmakers. In 1875 Mrs. Crawshay, of Cyfarthfa, had read a paper before the British Association advocating the introduction of "Lady Helps," but Punch was not convinced by her arguments, and turned the suggestion to something like ridicule in his burlesque extension of the idea in a series of advertisements of "Gentlemen Helps." "Jeames" was still a target, but a dwindling target of Punch's satire. When the Morning Post was reduced to a penny in 1881, "Jeames" tells the policeman that on hearing the news "you might have knocked me down with a peacock's feather." As of old, Punch found the real root of flunkeyism in the snobbery of masters and mistresses, and the worst offenders in this period were the parvenus, like Sir Gorgius Midas, who surrounded themselves with flunkeys even at picnics, and exaggerated the ostentation of the class whose manners they crudely aped. The shabbily dressed peer is contrasted with the bediamonded parvenu, and in one of Du Maurier's "Social Problem" pictures the problem is to tell the butler from the lord, the former being a most aristocratic-looking person, while his master – a new creation – is an unmistakable "bounder." Towards the growing self-assertion of female servants Punch was much more tolerant. In 1877, when the problem was already acute, he praises an independent attitude in a servant as being merely business-like, and later on sides with Mary Ann against despotic mistresses who advertised for parlourmaids and cooks who must not wear fringes. In 1891 Punch published a set of verses inspired by the dismissal, after nine days, of a maid who refused to wear a cap. But the extremists who would make the mistress the "woman" and the servant the "lady" found no favour in his sight; he was no more a supporter of tyrannical servants than of exacting mistresses, and in 1884 our sympathies are distinctly enlisted on the side of the graceful young wife, terrified at the prospect of having to give warning to a formidable cook, and begging the page-boy to stand by during the ordeal.

Mistress and Maid

In 1886 Punch discussed the formation of an Anti-Tipping League, but came to the shrewd conclusion, verified by experience, that it called for too much courage to prove successful. A year before, in a series of papers on "Public Grievances," he had published a set of letters written from different points of view, showing that mistresses and maids were both at fault. The sketch of "My Housemaid" in 1892 reverts to the old complaints of destructiveness and "followers," and notices, as special traits, a love of funerals and Exeter Hall.

Nine years earlier the Daily Telegraph had published a sensational report of the impending importation of Chinese labour for domestic service. Punch was not inclined to take the report seriously, but it cropped up again in 1882 in the St. James's Gazette: —

Domestic servants will view with well-grounded anxiety a decision arrived at by the Chinese merchants who met in conference a few days ago in London. It was resolved, among other things, to send letters to various Clubs in China, recommending emigration to England. If this recommendation is acted on, we may be on the eve of a great domestic and social revolution. There will, no doubt, be a prejudice at first in some households against the introduction into the family circle of the "heathen Chinee." But when his merits are discovered, it is not impossible he may be warmly welcomed as a valuable acquisition, meeting one of the most pressing requirements of the day.

Punch contented himself with publishing a mock protest from "John Thomas" of Belgravia against this "rediklus" proposal: —

The "St. Jeames's" takes a Lo view of the Domestic's Posishon. As if Work was the one thing Needfull. Whereas the fact is that a Footman in Good Societa is requier'd not only for Use but much more still for horniment. Look at a Chinee's legs. Look at his shoalders. Where's the bredth of the Won and the Carves of the Huther? Compare our ites mine and his. Six foot to sixpennuth of apence. Ow can I and sitch as me think of bein jellus of a Beger like that? If we was we mite petition for a additional Dooty on Forren Men Servants; but we don't want No sich Protection for Native Industry agin Imports.

The Doctors' Dilemma

In the same vein is a picture of a policeman paralysed by the appearance of a male Chinese cook in the area. But a somewhat different note is sounded in the Rip Van Winkle survey of England in 1932, published in the same number as John Thomas's protest, showing the British workman crowded out of every sort of employment by his laziness and greed and forced to take refuge in the workhouse, while the work of the country is wholly done by industrious aliens.

The scandal of underpaid governesses practically disappears from Punch's pages in this period. The evil was not extinct, but "superfluous women" were beginning to find other occupations, and the growing popularity of girls' schools undoubtedly diminished the demand for governesses.

In regard to inequalities of remuneration, Punch proved himself a sturdy champion of the medical profession. A lecture by Mr. Richard Davy at the Westminster Hospital in the autumn of 1875 took a decidedly pessimistic view of the professional prospects of medical students: —

Their salaries were simply miserable; hospital physicians and surgeons were, for the most part, unpaid. Poor Law Officers most piteously; surgeons in the services very badly, and young practitioners not at all. For seven years' hard work in the Marylebone Dispensary he had received one guinea, and a very distinguished London assistant physician had found that his salary equalled that of the man who put the skid on the omnibus wheels at Holborn Hill.

He advised every one to resign at once any and every thought of becoming a medical man unless he possessed three qualifications: – First, independence; second, an aptitude and love for the profession; third, the readiness to pay a heavy premium in this world for his prospects of reward in the next.

Punch expressed righteous indignation at the "generosity" with which an appreciative Government and a grateful Public were accustomed to requite the services of medical men. But the disparities of which Mr. Davy legitimately complained were nothing to those which have been common of late years. In 1920 the demonstrators in science at Oxford were getting just about the same pay as the Oxford road-sweepers. Attempts to disparage the social status of doctors were invariably resented by Punch, and when, in November, 1880, the Bishop of Liverpool, in a speech to medical men, observed "I am not ashamed to say I have a son a doctor," Punch promptly retorted in the following epigram: —

How kind of the Bishop, and how patronizing,
And yet to his Punch 'tis a little surprising,
That speaking to medical men there in session,
He dared speak of shame and a noble profession.
A Bishop looks after our souls, but how odd is
The sneer that's implied at the curers of bodies.
For surely it would be no hard task to fish up,
A hundred brave Doctors as good as the Bishop.

Cremation and Comprehension

Punch, it will be remembered, had been a caustic critic of medical students of the Bob Sawyer type in the 'forties. But he made his amende handsomely in 1886, when he acknowledged the change in the type and contrasted the serious and frugal modern student with the rowdy, bibulous sawbones of forty years before. Of irregular practitioners Punch had always been a hostile critic, and even the orthodox members of the profession did not always escape a certain amount of genial satire, as when, in 1886, an eminent physician, feeling ill, declines to call in any doctor because "we all go in for thinking each other such humbugs." In this context it may be permissible to add to what has already been said on the subject of cremation, and Punch's support of Sir Henry Thompson, that in 1874 there appeared the following mock "Grave-digger's Remonstrance" with that eminent surgeon: —

Who are you to be thieving
The poor sexton's bread?
How can we earn our living
If you urn our dead?

Nephew: "I hope you haven't been waiting long, Uncle?"

Uncle: "All right, my boy. Been reading the paper, and had a pinch – By the by, it's queer flavoured snuff in this jar of yours, Fred."

Nephew (aghast): "Snuff, Uncle! – Jar! Good gracious! – That's not snuff! Those are the ashes of my landlord's first wife!"

Punch, always a strong advocate of comprehension, saw in cremation a means of breaking down the barriers erected between conformists and nonconformists by exclusive graveyards.

Turning to other callings and the social problems which they presented, we may note that the difficulty experienced by retired officers in finding suitable and remunerative employment had begun to attract attention in 1885. The suggestions made by Lord Napier of Magdala in that year did not meet with a sympathetic response from Punch, who, in a somewhat infelicitous burlesque, foreshadowed the strange results on hotel management of the employment of officers in various menial capacities. The hardships of the underpaid clergy and "ragged curates" are seldom referred to in this period. In 1889 we are introduced to a new type in the moustachioed, eye-glassed, but energetic curate, who observes, "My vicar's away. I preach three times on Sunday, and boss the entire show." Indulgence in slang by bishops, however, did not come in till more than thirty years later.

Social inversions are a frequent theme of comment. The new commercial Crœsus expresses a contemptuous compassion for the "poor devils with fixed incomes." The Highlands are invaded by prosperous suburban tradesmen in kilts, and pen and pencil are enlisted to illustrate the embarrassments of the "New Poor," the altered balance between High and Low Life, and the comparative wealth of the working classes owing to their freedom from taxation and responsibilities. A notable sign of the times was the emergence of the American millionaire art collector. The first great ducal sale at Stowe dates back to 1848, but it was an isolated example and looked upon as almost a portent. In the 'eighties the depression of the landed interest led to further dispersion of treasures, beginning with the Duke of Hamilton's sale in 1882, and in 1889 the activity of American purchasers excited the laments of patriotic Frenchmen, echoed by Punch. There is, however, a good deal to be said on the other side when the American millionaire happens to be as enlightened and generous as the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan and his son. The influence of the "New Rich" in England on art only ministered to Punch's sense of ridicule, happily exercised at the expense of parvenus who bought books by the hundred yards or purchased faked "ancestral" portraits. These atrocities furnished congenial scope for the comments of Du Maurier's "Grigsby" – one of his most diverting creations – who plays the part of the facetious skeleton at the feasts of "Sir Pompey Bedell" and other self-satisfied plutocrats.

"Grigsby" on Family Portraits

Grigsby: "By the way, that's a new Picture, Sir Pompey – the Knight in Armour, I mean!"

Sir Pompey Bedell: "Er – yes. It came to me in rather a curious way – er – too long to relate at present. It's an Ancestor of mine – a Bedell of Richard the Third's period!"

Grigsby (who made an all but successful offer of three-seventeen-six for said Picture, last week, to old Moss Isaacs, in Wardour Street): "By Jove, he was precious near being an Ancestor of Mine, too!"

(Proceeds to explain, but is interrupted by Sir P.'s proposing to join the Ladies.)

Punch's attitude to the French, it may be noted, had grown much more genial and appreciative after the war of 1870. This mellower temper reflected a general feeling, but it was due in part at least to the influence of Du Maurier, who had French blood in his veins and had studied art in Paris. He did not refrain from chaffing the French "sportman," but his satire was delicate and tempered by candour. For example, one need only point to the picture of the Englishman in France expostulating with his French artist friend at the caricatures of Englishwomen in the Parisian Press, and suddenly silenced by the inopportune appearance of a party of Englishwomen exactly bearing out the caricature! Punch had no love of the English tourist on the Continent, and seldom failed to gibbet his inconsiderate angularity. He was no believer in globe-trotting as a means of promoting mutual understanding. But he was increasingly ready to admit that there were things which they managed better abroad, and to acknowledge that we might go very far astray if we formed our estimate of France on "Les Français peints par eux mêmes." Both nations have a way of putting their worst foot foremost, the one through shyness and reserve, the other through an excess of outspokenness, and Du Maurier's racial dualism made him an excellent interpreter of both failings.

Out of many miscellaneous features of this period we may single out the Japanese craze, a form of cheap æstheticism satirized by Punch in the early 'eighties; the popularity of the banjo, honoured by more than one reference in 1886 when it appears among the luggage to be taken to the seaside; the fashion in huge St. Bernard dogs, beloved of Du Maurier, who yet recognized the absurdity of breeding gigantic types in one of his nightmare pictures in 1879; and the plague of recitation, faithfully dealt with in Punch's admirable "Manual for Young Reciters." Christmas cards became fashionable in 1876; and Punch, as a sentimentalist, did not support the agitation against them as a "senseless extravagance" in 1878. The "Missing Word Competition" entered on its devastating career in 1892.

"Fin-de-Siècle"

As a symptom of the general speeding-up of life, and the resort to short cuts of all sorts in speech, as well as in action, one may note the appearance of a group of new words, of which "leaderette" and "sermonette" were the most notable until the arrival, many years later, of the "Suffragette." With the arrival of the 'nineties another formidable phrase, fin-de-siècle, sprang into prominence, and soon achieved a popularity that exasperated Punch beyond the bounds of endurance: —

WANTED, A WORD-SLAYER

Fin-de-siècle! Ah, that phrase, though taste spurn it, I
Fear, threatens staying with us to eternity.
Who will deliver
Our nerves, all a-quiver,
From that pest-term, and its fellow, "modernity"?

Just as he is pointing out to Monsieur Anatole Duclos, the Parisian journalist, how infinitely the English type of female beauty (especially amongst our Aristocracy) transcends that of France, or any other nation – who should come up from the beach but Lady Lucretia Longstaff and her five unmarried daughters!

– "And as for those idiotic old French caricatures of les Anglaises, with long gaunt faces and long protruding teeth and long flat feet – why, good heavens! my dear Duclos, the type doesn't even exist!"

Punch was much preoccupied with "modernity" and its numerous manifestations in these years, and his preoccupation took the form of a comprehensive series of "Modern Types," to which reference has already been made. Some of them will appear anything but modern to the Georgian reader, and, indeed, are not so much new as recurrent types – for example, the precocious undergraduate who gambles, drinks, fails in his schools, emigrates and dies miserably. The "Young Guardsman" is an eminently conventional portrait of a type which disappeared in the Great War, and is almost a libel on a Brigade whose social prestige is of infinitely less importance than its magnificent record of heroic achievement. The "Average Undergraduate" is in the main a handsome tribute to the public school system. He is not an Admirable Crichton, a Blue or a Scholar, but a decent fellow, truthful and ingenuous, who will always be a "useful member of the community." The tone of the whole series, however, is very far from ministering to national complacency. The bitterest of all these portraits is that of "The Adulated Clergyman," an effeminate, self-indulgent, insincere and unwholesome impostor, at all points a base variant of the type satirized in Thackeray's fashionable preacher, Charles Honeyman.

Punch's handling of social pests and evils throughout this period is decidedly pessimistic. The frank verses on divorce by consent – or rather collusion – in 1886 are a legitimate criticism enough. But at times he quite overshoots the mark, as, for example, in the acrimonious and grotesque tirade against the House of Lords, published in December, 1883, under the heading of "The Speaker: A Handbook to Ready-made Oratory." After giving a few notes on the personal appearance of some "titled types," the writer continues: —

There is a motto which every Peer is supposed to adopt as a rule of life – "noblesse oblige." It is presumed that every bearer of a hereditary title, carrying with it a right to receive numberless Blue Books published at the expense of the Public, is willing, in virtue of his position, to please everyone. Now it gratifies the community at large to hear a Peer talking in public, and, as some Peers cannot talk in public, it may be as well to give the specimen of the sort of speech which would cause unlimited satisfaction in all quarters but the highest. Of course, the imaginary speaker is a myth – a foolish but frank Lord, with the courage of his opinions. Should such a person, however, be found, there would be no doubt about his popularity – again, in certain circles. It must be remembered that, as the speaker would be a Peer addressing Commoners, all his Lordship's remarks would be received with the deepest approval.

"Noblesse Oblige!"

Our Gallant Colonel: "And where and how have you spent the Summer, Miss Golightly?"

Miss Golightly: "Oh, I sat in a punt with my favourite man – a quite too delicious man!"

Noble Orator (rising at the right of the Chairman). Gentlemen – (enthusiastic applause) – I am sure I must thank you for the honour you have conferred upon me. ("No, no!") Yes, it is an honour, because I believe I am verily the most uneducated dolt in all this brilliant assembly. (Cheers.) I am, indeed: and, although a great many of my peers – perhaps the majority – are highly respectable, still in my class you will discover many who resemble me in nearly every particular. (Applause.) As a lad I refused to learn anything, and could scarcely spell my name – certainly it was a long one – at fifteen. (Great cheering.) I was a dunce at school, and a cad at the University. (Frantic enthusiasm.) It is my great pride to remember that at this latter seat of learning I had the honour to burn half the College library, and to screw up the door to my tutor's apartments. (Roars of laughter.) But from this you must not imagine that I am fond of squandering. On the contrary, I audit my own butcher's book, and superintend the store-cupboard of my Lady's housekeeper. (Cheers.) I never go by a cab when I can take an omnibus, and if asked for a shilling by a genuinely starving beggar, would, after mature consideration, advance him a halfpenny on account, chargeable on approved security. (Cheers.) And yet I am very rich, enormously rich. (Renewed applause.) Many of the slums of the greatest city in the world belong to me. (Cheers.) And although slums are not pretty to look at or live in, they are good ones to pay. (Shouts of enthusiasm.) From this slight confession you may imagine that I am ignorant, vicious, mean, and grasping. (Prolonged cheering.) Well, I am all these, and more, for I am an ass into the bargain. (Thunders of applause.) Besides this, I have no birth to boast of. A hundred years ago or so, my great-grandfather swept a crossing, and his wife dealt in hare-and rabbit-skins. But what matter the past when we have the present before us! I am crassly ignorant and intolerably offensive, but I am a Lord. (Enormous enthusiasm.) And, as a Lord, I can give you what laws I please – ("You can; you can!") – or never go near the House of Lords from one year's end to another. I generally adopt the latter course, except when the interest of my own class, or the gratification of a fad, cause me to perform my highly responsible duties. On these occasions, however, I take care that I represent none but myself. (A storm of applause.) Under these circumstances, as I am bored out of my life, and have just enough sense to see that I am a nuisance to everyone, inclusive of myself, I am sure you are glad that you are not me. "Noblesse oblige," I want to console you! (The noble speaker here resumed his seat amidst the wildest enthusiasm.)

Such a speech as the above would, no doubt, reconcile many listeners to cease to envy the Peerage, the more especially if they happened to be either Baronets of James the First's creation or members of the oldest (not the mushroom) county families.

Punch's Pessimism

The speaker was "imaginary," though the burning down half a College library was a true bill, and the ringleader in this exploit afterwards attained high rank as a politician. But these composite portraits are seldom satisfactory, and in this instance the resultant monstrosity ceases to be representative. The House of Lords was not exclusively composed of black sheep at any time, and on the whole more dangerous scoundrels have made their way into the elected House. But here, as so often happens, Punch provides the antidote to his own bane. In 1886, under the heading "A Radical Snob," he reprints what Thackeray wrote in his own pages just forty years earlier: —

"Perhaps, after all, there's no better friend to Conservatism than your outrageous Radical Snob. When a man preaches to you that all Noblemen are tyrants, that all Clergymen are hypocrites or liars, that all Capitalists are scoundrels, banded together in an infamous conspiracy to deprive the people of their rights, he creates a wholesome revulsion of feeling in favour of the abused parties, and a sense of fair play leads the generous heart to take a side with the object of unjust oppression.

"The frantic dwarf … becomes a most wicked and dangerous Snob when he gets the ear of people more ignorant than himself, inflames them with lies, and misleads them into ruin."

Yet, when all allowance has been made for inconsistency and extravagance, we cannot deny that a strongly marked vein of discontent and dissatisfaction – often too well-grounded – with the "scheme of things in general" runs through the pages of Punch throughout these years, culminating in a dismal explosion of pessimism in March, 1884, over the decadence, the degeneracy and the vulgarity of the age: —

THE "ZEIT-GEIST"

Oh, for the Muse that laughed and stung
On Gulliver's indignant tongue!
Curt was his speech and fierce and strong,
In lofty scorn of Cant and Wrong, —
And small indeed the times that teach
Weakness of grip for strength of speech,
Craving once more that Muse to fire
The chords of Satire's slackened lyre!

Oh, little day of little men,
What themes invite the mocker's pen!
What rush for wealth at any cost,
Honour and Health defied and lost;
What blatant parodies of Fame
(That hardly won and noble name),
Dragged in the sickly spectral lee
Of sallow Notoriety;
Ambition's highest aim to quaff
The rinsings of a paragraph,
And Life's whole purpose sunk and spent
To furnish an advertisement!
Oh, for some Juvenalian verse
Thy sound and fury to rehearse,
While Indignation pours the strain
Which Nature may desire in vain.⁹
Where'er the stifled spirit fly,
What sights and sounds obscure the sky!
The Statesman's cut-and-dried abuse,
And frothy violence turned to use,
Dead Christian hatreds spurred to life,
To serve the ends of party strife;
The Lawyer's pæans in his fees;
The Actor's noisy juggleries,
As every little journal tells
Where last he shook the cap and bells;
The Critic in his newest dress,
Sans scholarship or kindliness,
With no credentials under Heaven
For worthy work or asked or given,
And nagging, after Insult's wont,
At those who "do," for those who don't;
Patriots by bravos hired and sung,
For bright sword carrying fish-fag's tongue.
The Poetaster's mixture, made
Of pitch and darkness for a trade;
The Man of Science, self-crowned King
Of Learning and of everything,
Serenely squatting on his throne,
Fogged with conundrums of his own,
And probing with his two-foot rod
His muddy substitutes for God, —
While tambourines and banjos raise
The Hymn of Noise for that of Praise;
Our very island's sea-girt rock
Risked to be land-bound into "stock";
Ay, even Woman's tarnished crown
Hawked through the windows of the town,
And all our sires held first and best
In pufferies of all sizes dressed,
Till England watch, through England's Press,
The fall of English manliness!

Vexed soul, seek out some other shore;
Houses are castles here no more;
Vain in the penny-age to fly
From all the penny-trumpetry:
Or hide thee from the watchful zeal
Of those who serve the weekly meal
For jaded gluttons, keen to gloat
On savoury sauce of Anecdote.
Yet let nor cook nor eaters rue,
The eaten seem to like it too,
For in Society's new game
Cooks, food, and eaters are the same,
And Fashion, spider-like, supplies
Her self-spun web to catch her flies!

Thou boastful "Spirit of the Time,"
Wake prose itself to angry rhyme!
Soon shall the dark forbid the light
To any hand with power to write,
And the new myriad scribbling-race,
Like locusts shroud all Sense's face,
Rushing (where angels are not seen)
Into the Prigs' Own Magazine,
While Upper-Tens profusely scrawl
In grammar from the servants' hall,
Till Ink itself shall blush to tint
Nothing but amateurs in print,
And the true child of letters learn
He has no space to breathe or turn,
And scorn accept the Century's plan,
That all may write, save those who can.
I turn me, wearied, at my desk,
From the last "thinker's" last burlesque
The last Agnostic's windy plea
That none knows anything, but he,
In English carefully destroyed
To hide his meaning's outer void;
And, bowing to the wisdoms old,
Read simpler lessons writ in gold:
And would but in a single word
The "Spirit of the Age" be heard,
Let him take up his glass and see
His image this – Vulgarity.

Marius.

The Spirit of the Time

What a list it is! The quest of notoriety, blatant advertisement, party rancour and sectarian strife, forensic greed, mummer-worship, incompetent and ungenerous criticism, fleshly poetry, the arrogance of science, "Corybantic Christianity," tarnished womanhood, the decay of manly fibre, prying journalism, amateurism in letters, windy Agnosticism, with vulgarity enthroned as high priestess of the age! Modern Juvenals, when they are Jeremiahs into the bargain, are not exhilarating companions. Here Punch saw life in England neither steadily nor whole, and made the mistake, not surprising in a Londoner, of confounding the extravagances, the eccentricities and the vices of London coteries and cliques, and, above all, of her idle rich, with the tone and temper of the nation at large. "Smart" London Society did not represent England or even London. But Punch spoke with many voices, and in the "Voces Populi," with which, towards the end of this period, Mr. Anstey had begun to refresh and rejoice the hearts of his readers, you will find an agreeable corrective of the unqualified pessimism of "Marius." The "people" whose "voices" are recorded were often ridiculous, vulgar and semi-educated, but they were not corrupt or degenerate. Twenty years later the extravagances castigated by "Marius" were even more pronounced, but were confined to the same limited though highly advertised circles. Yet many of those who seemed most wedded to self-indulgence were capable of a noble regeneration in the hour of their country's need. And outside these circles there was, in 1884, as at a later date, a great if unobtrusive throng of men and women who stood in the authentic line of the heroes and heroines of the past, only waiting for an opportunity to prove themselves the inheritors of their spirit.

9. "Si Natura negat, facit indignatio versum."