Chapter V: Part I: The Two Nations (4)

[Sidenote: _Clerical Bugbears_]

The wealth, the obscurantism, and the Olympian detachment of the great prince bishops were a constant source of exasperation and comment. _Punch_ was a supporter of cheap divorce. He preferred this reform to the Bill for flogging wife-beaters, and securing the right of the wife to keep part of her earnings when separated from a bad husband. The Parliamentary records of the middle 'fifties are full of debates on the subject, but one extract from _Punch's_ "Essence of Parliament" may suffice to illustrate his _nolo episcopari_ attitude:--

_Thursday_, June 26th. The Divorce Bill came to the Lords from
their Select Committee, and Lord Lyndhurst most ably explained its
present character. What is proposed is this. A new Tribunal for
deciding upon matrimonial causes. That a divorced woman who
acquires property shall have it for herself. That she may sue, in
actions, as a single woman. That a wife shall be placed somewhat
more upon a footing with a husband as regards the obtaining
divorce. That in all cases of a husband's infidelity (accompanied
with cruelty), in certain still worse cases, and in those of
bigamy, a woman shall be entitled to ask divorce. Lord Lansdowne
gave eloquent support to the Bill. The Bishop of Oxford (_Mr.
Punch_ does not misrepresent him, for the Church's stalwart friend,
the _Standard_, manifests indignant surprise at his Lordship's
speech) objected to the proposed increased facility of divorce.
"The lower classes did not demand the _privilegia_ afforded to the
higher and wealthier classes." The Bishop of St. David's thought
with Dr. Wilberforce. Lord Campbell, in reply, cited Mr. Justice
Maule's scorching irony, when a poor man, whose wife had robbed him
and absconded, had sought to provide his children with a mother,
and had committed bigamy. The Bishop of Oxford contrived to carry a
postponement of the next stage of the Bill, which he means to
"amend." Let the Lords protect the Women of England against the
Priests.

It may be added that _Punch_ was also a supporter of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and that here again he found considerable scope for the display of his anti-episcopal animus. When Lord St. Germans' Bill was defeated in the Lords on April 25, 1856, _Punch_ notes that the result was chiefly due to "four priests"--the Bishops of Oxford, Cashel, St. David's and Exeter--and applauds Lord Albemarle, one of the heroes of Waterloo, for his "courageous condemnation of clerical intolerance." Lord Albemarle, in the course of his speech, made bold to say that "the opinions generally expressed by ladies on this subject were attributable to the ignorance of their spiritual advisers, and to the undue reverence for the Common Prayer-book." _Punch's_ own reasons for supporting the change included the ironical argument that a widower debarred from relief, when he remarries takes on a _second_ mother-in-law.

[Sidenote: _Destitute Clergy_]

But _Punch's_ chief objection to the bishops was that they emphasized in the most glaring way the contrasts which existed in what was at once the wealthiest and the poorest of Churches. If the Church was out of touch with the lay poor, she was even more open to criticism for her neglect of her own poor clergy. The scandal of the ragged curates had attracted _Punch's_ attention in the 'forties. On September 19, 1846, he referred to the recent death, "raving mad, in penury and destitution," of the Rev. Mr. Kaye, of St. Pancras. A return, procured by the energetic inquisitiveness of Joseph Hume at the close of 1847, revealed the fact that the total number of assistant curates to incumbents resident on their benefices amounted in 1846 to 2,642, and the number licensed to 2,094. Of these 1,192 received stipends _under_ £100 a year, and as many as 173 _less_ than £50 a year. But the most bitter comment on this modern clerical instance of Dives and Lazarus is to be found in an article in 1856 on "Bishops and Curates":--

A curate--"an Agueish curate"--wishes to know of _The Times_ if
curates in general "may look forward for some provision when age
and disease have incapacitated them from further labours?" There is
disaffection, insolence, in the very question. This curate for
twenty years folded the sheep of two curacies. "They were separated
by a hedgerow," and the pastor was "exposed to the pestilential
atmosphere of Essex Marshes." And the curate sums up the case of
bishop and curate as below:--

"To a bishop who has had his labours sweetened by all that life can
give of comfort, luxury, and highest dignity--a palace and £6,000
per annum.

"To a curate who, for thirty years, shall have done his devoir
before God and man, till broken with miasmatic fever, or voiceless
from excess of oral exertion, he is obliged to confess his
inability to be any longer faithful in his calling--the workhouse."

And is it not well that it should be so? A curate on £100 a year,
and shaking with a marsh ague, shaking, and praying, and teaching
the while, is still a lively representative of the ancient
Christian, is still a living extract from the New Testament. Now a
bishop, with £22,000 per annum, and, if shaking, shaking with the
fat of the land, is, as far as our reading goes, not to be found in
the volume to which we have reverently alluded.

It should be explained that on July 10 in the same year a Bill had been introduced in the Lords enabling the Bishops of London and Durham to resign, and making provision for them:--

The annual income of Dr. Blomfield is £10,000 a year, and he has
enjoyed it for twenty-eight years, having previously had four years
at Chester with £1,000 a year; total receipt, £284,000. And the
annual income of Dr. Maltby is £24,000, and he has enjoyed it for
twenty years, having previously had five years at Chichester with
£4,000 a year; total receipt, £500,000.

The "Prince Bishops," with their princely revenues, have long since departed: nowadays no one charges bishops with indolent opulence. The scandal of the poor curates and underpaid country clergymen still remains, but the disparity is not so great. The best paid prelates find it hard to make both ends meet or to make provision for their families. Some of them even publish balance-sheets of their receipts and expenditure.

[Sidenote: _Punch and "No Popery"_]

In the domain of doctrine and religious controversy _Punch's_ record is somewhat chequered. He was equally antipathetic to High Church and Low Church. We have seen what he thought of Exeter Hall. But Pusey and his followers stirred him to even greater wrath. He called the Puseyites "Brummagem Papists." He saw no beauty or dignity in an advanced ritual, but only an absurd and wicked "playing at religion." So when the famous Papal Brief was published in the autumn of 1850, constituting a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in place of the Vicars Apostolic, followed up by the pastoral from the newly appointed Cardinal Wiseman welcoming the restoration of England to the communion of the Roman Church, _Punch's_ indignation knew no bounds; he became the most violent champion of English Protestantism. In earlier days he had welcomed the Liberal political views which Pius IX had expressed in the opening stages of the _Risorgimento_ movement in Italy, and had printed a laudatory set of verses, headed "A Health to the Pope," in the issue of February 20, 1847, in which he had congratulated Pio Nono on his masculine wisdom, courage, and reforming zeal. His severest censures were reserved for the sectarian zealots at home. "Everybody knows that the great obstacle to popular education is the agreement of sects, on the one hand, that it is necessary to teach orthodoxy, together with secular knowledge, and their inability, on the other, to agree what doxy is ortho-."

Early in 1850, when the friends of Church Education met at Willis's Rooms to discuss and protest against the Government's Education Bill, he declared himself a decided opponent of "National Education upon strictly Church principles," which, as interpreted by some of the speakers, were "indistinguishable from those of the heretic-burners of the Inquisition." The cleavage between the various schools, and the narrow bigotry of all, moved him to an impassioned appeal in which the Gorham case, and the secession of Newman, are brought in to reinforce his plea for toleration:--

O Gentlemen! O Servants of the poor dear Church of England, while
you are boxing and brawling within the sanctuary, why send forth
these absurd emissaries to curse the people outside? They don't
mind your comminations, they are only jeering at your battles....
The people in this country _will_ learn to read and write; they
will not let the parsons set their sums and point out their
lessons, or meddle in all their business of life. And as for your
outcries about infidelity and atheism, they will laugh at you (as
long as they keep their temper) and mind you no more than Mumbo
Jumbo.

Sound doctrine this, but it was all forgotten in the frenzy of the "No Popery" movement a few months later. _Punch_, in a poem on "Consolation amid Controversy," gives thanks that the days of persecution are past:--

We've now some sharpish mutual slanging,
But, Heaven be thanked, there is no hanging!
No axe, no chopping-block, no drawing,
But only just a little jawing.

* * * * *

There's no Jack Ketch his business plying,
People beheading, throttling, frying.
_Punch_, and he says it without boasting,
Does all the cutting up and roasting.

As a matter of fact, the whole of Volume xix. is dominated by the one subject. The "cutting up and roasting" of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman, of Passionists and Puseyites, is conducted on every other page. The Pope's message was "the greatest bull ever known." In "Pontifical News" we have a series of imaginary appointments, including a Papal Lord Chancellor, miracles and conversions, winding up with the announcement that the Palace of Bedlam will be proposed as the residence of the new Primate of England. Simultaneously, burlesque rival claims are put forward on behalf of other creeds--Mohammedan, Buddhist and Brahmin.

Daring Attempt to Break Into a Church]

[Sidenote: _Cardinal Wiseman_]

On November 4 Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, addressed a letter to the Bishop of Durham, in which, without pronouncing definitely whether the law had been transgressed, he vigorously condemned the Papal claims as "inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation as asserted even in Roman Catholic times." Lord John confessed, however, that he was less alarmed by any aggression of a foreign sovereign than by the practices of "clergymen of our own Church, who have been most forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the precipice." In conclusion he relied with confidence on the people of England, feeling sure that the great mass of a nation "which looked with contempt on the mummeries of superstition" would be faithful to "the glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation." _Punch_ lost no time in improving on this text, and in the number of November 16 his "No Popery" campaign reached a climax in "A Short Way with the Pope's Puppets." _Punch_ had no desire, he declares, to bring back the days of the hurdle, the halter, the axe and the quartering-knife. But if a Roman Catholic Pope-appointed Cardinal called upon the City of Westminster to do him, in the name of Rome, all spiritual obedience, he would "immediately seize such Cardinal, try him for high treason, and on conviction send him, in convict gray, to the Antipodes." Yet the lines just quoted on "Consolation amid Controversy" appeared a month later, while the anti-Papal crusade was still raging its way through _Punch's_ columns! The acrimony displayed with pen and pencil was deplorable. In extenuation it can only be pleaded that _Punch_ was following the lead of the Premier, and not misinterpreting the sentiments of a very large section of the community as exhibited in addresses to the Crown, county meetings and other demonstrations. Cardinal Wiseman's conciliatory statement, in which he maintained that the proposed change had been adopted "for the more regular administration of the Roman Catholic Church of England, and only at the request of English communicants," left _Punch_ cold and derisive. He suggests that as a counterblast to the Pope the Queen should be prayed to create Mazzini President of Rome. In the "Bull" fight of London, in "Fashions Papal and Puseyite," in the comparison between aggressive Papists and Cuffey, the transported Chartist--very much to the advantage of the latter--in satiric comments on Romanist interpretation of history, in repulsive caricatures of slinking, intrusive priests, _Punch_ continued to heap odium and ridicule on the Papal claims. He was more than a little wrathful with the _Morning Chronicle_ for asserting that in the "No Popery" crusade "the tide of opinion is already turned." But the _Morning Chronicle_ was not far out, and it is noteworthy that from this point onwards _Punch's_ attacks were chiefly directed against Puseyites and Ritualists--such as Mr. Bennett, the vicar of St. Barnabas, Pimlico--and Tractarians, of whom he wrote:--

Rome, Rome, sweet sweet Rome,
For all us Tractarians, there's no place like Rome.

Cardinal Wiseman did not "take it lying down," but retaliated vigorously on _Punch_ in the _Dublin Review_, denouncing his opponent as once facetious, but now old, drivelling, and malignant, "down to his old street occupation of playing the hangman," and ironically complimented him on the concession, in his letter to Lord John Russell, of commuting the capital punishment of offending Roman Catholic bishops to mere transportation for life. _Punch_ promptly hit back, but he did not get the better of the exchange. Wiseman was a skilful controversialist; he was also an extremely accomplished and learned man, a considerable Orientalist, and much in request as a lecturer on social, artistic and literary topics. Of this side of the Cardinal there is no trace in _Punch's_ pages, least of all in the cartoons and portraits, in which he is represented as a man of gross, plebeian and repulsive appearance. If, as is generally believed, Wiseman was the original of Browning's Bishop Blougram, the poet took him more seriously. Browning's portrait is certainly not flattering, but he put into the bishop's mouth a saying which probably represented the Cardinal's view of _Punch_ accurately in the verse:--

You, for example, clever to a fault,
The rough and ready man, who write apace,
Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.

Public opinion was divided and unexpected convergences were revealed--illustrated, to take only one instance, by _Punch's_ satirical picture of John Bright embracing Wiseman. But in the heat of the controversy _Punch_ showed refreshing signs of good sense and good feeling, and sternly rebukes the precursors of the "Kensitites," who made a vulgar demonstration, in which the ringleader masqueraded as a mock Pope outside Wiseman's house. "To play the fool about the street on behalf of Protestantism can only discredit it." Still, the Pope and Wiseman remained the targets of _Punch's_ obloquy for several years. Oxford he regarded as "the halfway house to Rome." Indeed, one is tempted to sum up his views in an adaptation of an old rhyme:--

Roman dictation is my vexation;
Oxford is just as bad;
Papal aggression is my obsession,
And Pusey drives me mad.

In "Roman Candles in Hampshire" we find him attacking Keble's ritual at Hursley. This was in February, 1852, and when the _Tablet_ attributed the riots and loss of life at Stockport to the Government's proclamation "against processions, vestments, and the free exercise of the Catholic religion," charged the Ministers responsible with planning murder, and described the Queen's speech as "a vile and hypocritical document," _Punch_ replied to the editor that "we, the mass of Englishmen, look upon your viperine expectorations with simple antipathy and disgust." A bitter cartoon on the interference of Irish priests at elections followed up this exchange of opinions; not more bitter, however, than the repeated onslaughts on Canon Moore, the Anglican pluralist registrar of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, who drew £13,000 a year, according to _Punch_, yet doing nothing to earn it. The controversy died down during the Crimean War, and then, four years elapsing, the Clapham Evangelicals are rebuked for the "profane vulgarity and sanctified slang" of their campaign against the Redemptionist Fathers.

[Sidenote: _A More Tolerant Spirit_]

For the rest of the period under review in this volume _Punch_ shows a slightly more tolerant spirit to Papists. Exeter Hall and the bigots who strove for a renewal of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, which they considered had been imperilled by the Maynooth Grant, are frequently rebuked for this intolerance; and he went so far as to say, _à propos_ of the persistent activities of the United Kingdom Alliance, that, "Of all Popery, that which threatens to 'rob a poor man of his beer' is the most objectionable and most atrociously subversive of the liberty of the British subject." The sting of the remark was not lessened by the fact that the honorary secretary of the Alliance in question was a Mr. Samuel Pope, and _Punch_, unable to resist a pun, observes that there is "one important difference between this present Papal aggression and that of this time six years. There was at least one Wiseman engaged in the former, whereas the parties to the latter are all of them fools." At the close of the year we come across the first mention of Spurgeon--by no means complimentary. _Punch_, who suggests him as a fit model for Madame Tussaud, who "makes dolls of our idols," regarded the Nonconformist preacher, already famous at the age of twenty-three, as a mere self-advertising jocular charlatan, a "sacred creature at thousands of tea-tables," a "dealer in brimstone with plenty of treacle." _Punch_, as will be seen, had no liking for the "pets of the pulpit," whose portraits were even more in evidence at the print-sellers' shops than those of favourite actors. The "histrionic pulpit" was "worse than the stage at its worst," and he admonishes Spurgeon to dispense with these aids to popularity.

To resume and sum up, the outlook on Church and State of a very large body of public opinion, from that of the Liberal Prime Minister to the man in the street, is reflected in the pages of _Punch_. Where doctrinal controversies are concerned we find a complete accordance with the sentiments of "Hang Theology" Rogers, the late rector of Bishopsgate. We find a complete inability to appreciate a bishop such as "Henry of Exeter," who was prepared to spend--and lose--scores of thousands of pounds in litigation to establish his views on baptismal regeneration. We find continuous onslaughts on Pluralism, Sinecurism, Mediævalism, Sectarianism, and, above all, Sabbatarianism. _Punch_ made no effort to disguise his satisfaction when the "Exeter Hallites," as a result of their campaign against the Maynooth Grant, were landed in serious financial troubles, and appealed for relief to discharge their debts. "How," he asks, "can people have the conscience to ask for charity of others who have so little of it themselves?"

"I 'spects nobody can't do nothin' with me."--_Vide Uncle Tom's Cabin._]

On April 26 of this same year of 1845 _Punch_ castigated the violence of the Duke of Newcastle, Colonel Sibthorp, Plumptre and other opponents of the Maynooth Grant Bill, notably a certain Sir Culling Eardley Smith, who declared that "the British Lion was now aroused and would not rest again until he had devoured every atom of Popery," and that he knew of "at least twelve men in Parliament who would die on the floor of the House sooner than that the Bill should pass into law." If _Punch_ showed himself almost as violent, if not as ridiculous as this Protestant gladiator, let it be remembered that, as a convinced believer in the British Constitution and the principles of the Reformation, he regarded the Papal claims as an attempt to set up an _imperium in imperio_. Catholic emancipation he firmly supported, but this was another matter. His misgivings were unfounded, but there is no reason to doubt his honesty or that of those who felt as he did. It was part of the same insularity, often prompted by a sound instinct, which led him to look with disfavour on foreigners and foreign ways as likely, if encouraged, to denationalize the British fibre. To this we may also attribute his early distrust and suspicion of Disraeli. Nor was it to be wondered at, in view of the admissions of his biographers:--

The fundamental fact about Disraeli was that he was a Jew. He
accepted Christianity, but he accepted it as the highest
development of Judaism. He had inherited from his father a profound
interest in English history, literature, society and tradition,
which his own reading and experience had deepened. But he seemed
throughout his life never to be quite of the nation which he loved,
served and governed; always to be a little detached when in the act
of leading; always to be the spectator, almost the critic, as well
as the principal performer. "No Englishman," writes Greenwood,
"could approach Disraeli without some immediate consciousness that
he was in the presence of a foreigner."[9]

Now _Punch_ was intensely English; he saw no need for "Oriental mystery" in politics, and considered Disraeli's adoption by the country gentlemen as little short of an unholy alliance. Dizzy's flamboyant and exotic tastes were a constant source of offence. Nothing better illustrates this habit of mind, which was by no means peculiar to _Punch_, than the part played by the paper during the 'forties and 'fifties in the long and chequered movement in favour of removing Jewish disabilities. A manly desire to give the Jews fair play was tempered by strong prejudice. As we have seen, _Punch_ frankly admitted the Jews' great virtue, their care for their poor, and held it up as an example to the "Exeter Hallites," who thought that charity must begin abroad. At the same time he held the Jews largely responsible for the worst side of the cheap clothing trade, witness his bitter verses on "Moses & Co." in 1844.

[Footnote 9: _Life of Disraeli_ (Monypenny and Buckle), Vol. vi., p. 635.]

[Sidenote: _Punch and the Jews_]

_Punch's_ jests at the expense of the Jews were not always so excusable as in the case of Messrs. Moses and "Sholomansh"; they were sometimes purely malicious, as when a design for a monument to Disraeli at Shrewsbury took the form of a column of discarded hats; or, again, when the announcement that the University of Oxford intended to confer on him the honorary degree of D.C.L., _Punch_ was prompted to remark that the initials stood for "Deuced Clever Levite." The strange passage in Disraeli's "Life of Lord George Bentinck," foreshadowing the rôle of world revolutionaries assigned to the Jews in the recent much discussed Jewish Protocol, did not escape _Punch's_ notice, and his comment is characteristic:--

Well! The Jews, it seems, are conscious of their ill-treatment.
_They_ join Secret Societies. _They_ (for the evils complained of
by the Barbarians have nothing to do with it; their leaders are
nobodies) topple over thrones with delight. Bless us, what a
picture! And what does it suggest? Now we know why Shadrach is a
Sheriff's Officer! "_All is race._" What a picture of cool
malignity is this! Shadrach taps us on the shoulder with a fiendish
luxury, and exults in dragging off the Northern Barbarian. He
luxuriates in locking up the Frank in a sponging-house; he charges
him for the "Semitic Element," and sticks it on to the chop and
sherry.

Was _Punch_ an anti-Semite? The answer is to be found in his unwavering, if not always very courteous or respectful, support of Baron Rothschild in his eleven years' struggle to enter the House of Commons.

Baron Rothschild's anomalous position and his persistence in demanding relief recalled to _Punch_ Martin Luther's saying of the Jews: "They sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, a people, or a Government." This, adds _Punch_, was said 350 years ago, and the Jew is on the wheelbarrow still.

LORD JOHN: "It's impossible for our House to let you have that little matter now. But you can have a Bill payable next Session, if you like."]

[Sidenote: _Jewish Disabilities_]

Rothschild, elected as Whig Member for the City of London, and re-elected in 1852, 1854, and twice in 1857, was still refused permission to take part in the privileges of the House, though allowed to sit below the Bar, and remain there when notice was taken of strangers. In all, _nine_ Bills giving the Jews relief had been passed by the Commons since 1830 and rejected by the Lords, before the tenth, and last, introduced by Lord John Russell in 1858, led to a compromise under which each House was enabled to determine the form in which the oath should be taken by its members. On July 26, 1858, Baron Rothschild's "barrow" was removed, and he was permitted to swear the oath of allegiance in the Jewish form and take his seat. To Lord John Russell belonged the chief credit for carrying through this reform and abating a crying scandal, but undoubtedly _Punch_ lent him valuable free-lance help throughout.

FROM PEACE TO WAR

In the 'forties _Punch_, as we have already noted, stood in with "the group of middle-class men of enthusiasm and sagacity" whose leaders in Parliament were Cobden and Bright. Their views were from the first strongly anti-militaristic, and were shared up to a certain point by _Punch_. In his early years he was, with some reserves, distinctly pacificist. If by 1854 he was a whole-hearted supporter of the Crimean War, it was not due to any change of _personnel_. The gentle Doyle resigned because of _Punch's_ "No Popery" campaign. Thackeray severed his connexion with the paper because of its attacks on Palmerston, the Prince Consort and Louis Napoleon. But the men who dominated the policy of _Punch_ in his ultra-humanitarian days remained when he was most bellicose. Leech, who drew the "Home of the Rick-burner," was responsible for "General Février" and the Crimean and Mutiny cartoons. Mark Lemon was still editor, Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert à Beckett were his right hand men and most voluminous contributors. It was a conversion, if you like, but it was not dictated by expediency, nor did it involve a sacrifice of conviction or a desertion of the cause of the underdog. It was partly due to a John Bullish resentment of anything savouring of foreign aggression or intervention. Along with all his criticisms of Palmerston's Parliamentary opportunism, _Punch_ gave "the judicious bottle-holder" credit for keeping us out of wars by his stiffness. _Punch_ supported Cobden and Bright in the battle over the Corn Laws, but distrusted and thoroughly disapproved of the attitude of the Manchester School towards the reform of the conditions of Labour--witness his "Few words with John Bright" over the Factory Act of 1847. Above all, he could not stomach the over-candid friend who invariably sided against his country.

"Russia has two Generals in whom she can confide--Generals Janvier and Février."--_Speech of the late Emperor of Russia._]

With this much by way of preface we may note that the anti-militaristic tirades of these early years are mainly directed against the needless pomp and pageantry, expense and extravagance of the services. _Punch's_ campaign against duelling is another matter, and here at least he never recanted his detestation of "the law of the pistol." He did not spare even the Duke of Wellington, but made sarcastic reference to his meeting with Lord Winchilsea in 1843, and in his cartoon represented the principals wearing frock-coats and fool's caps. There is an indignant letter to Peel the following March, when that statesman refused to bring in a Bill against duelling, or to reprimand the Irish Attorney-General for challenging in open court the opposing counsel in the O'Connell trial; and when Peel further declined to grant a pension to the widow of Colonel Fawcett, a distinguished officer who lost his life in a duel, this refusal prompted a famous cartoon a fortnight later, accompanied by this vitriolic comment:--

If a statue be ever erected to the living honour or the memory of
Sir Robert Peel, the artist will wholly fail in his illustration of
the true greatness of the statesman unless he deck the bronze with
widow's cap and weepers. In the long and sinuous career of the
noble baronet, we know of nothing equal to his denial of a pension
to Mrs. Fawcett, and, almost in the same week, his speech in favour
of the "laws of honour" as they exist. In one hand does the Prime
Minister hold the scales of justice, and in the other a
duelling-pistol!

_Punch's_ remedy for the evasion of the law was to let the principals go free, but to hang the seconds without hesitation.

[Sidenote: _Punch as Pacifist_]

The choice of the Army as a profession is discussed in one of the series named "The Complete Letter-writer," which appeared in 1844. Mr. Benjamin Allpeace, guardian to young Arthur Baytwig, pronounces against it as a gilded fraud. At best soldiers are evils of the earth, and the pomp and pageantry of war mere gimcrackery. The reality is "misery and anguish, blood and tears." This was the year in which the Prince de Joinville, Louis Philippe's third son, after bombarding Tangier and occupying Mogador, made himself notorious by his bellicose pamphleteering; but _Punch_ was equally severe on Lord Maidstone for his patriotic rhymes in the _Morning Post_, and on the warlike philanthropists of Exeter Hall, who were much exercised by the Prince's ill-will towards Great Britain. _Punch_, prohibited in France not for the first or last time for his comments on French politics, ridiculed the Chauvinists on both sides with impartial satire, and published a "Woman's Plea for Peace with France" on the ground of our debt to that country in wine, fashion, the ballet, Jullien (the popular musician and conductor resident in London, who would have to flee in case of war), and cosmetics. Later on, in the same year, we come across "Entente Cordiale" cartoons, in which _Punch_ assumes the rôle of the pacificator of Europe, and a letter to French editors protesting against the notion that John Bull is a plotter. _Punch_ had already given a half serious support to Captain Warner, the eccentric inventor, who professed to have invented a long-range invisible shell to blow up ships at a distance, hailing it as a means of ending war, and developed the argument further in a curious article on the "Science of Warfare," _à propos_ of the benevolent object of some inventors at Fulham. Their aim, it seems, was to put an end to war by making it so truly terrific that, as in the classic example of the Kilkenny cats, it would terminate its own existence by its very ferocity. Thus do we find in the mid 'forties a foreshadowing of the sinister uses of applied science and a justification of the doctrine of "frightfulness." In 1845, in connexion with the intended reorganization or calling out of the Militia, we find the first of many satirical references to the famous Brook Green Volunteer--Brook Green being "one of the bolts of the great Gate of London," as Hammersmith was the key to the metropolis on the western side. _Punch_ at this time was a bitter critic of the methods of recruiting, and his anti-militaristic zeal reached a climax in a protest against the advertisements used at Birmingham and elsewhere, in which he calls the recruiting sergeant "the clown in the bloody pantomime of glory." He had already fallen foul of Sir Charles Napier for his defence of the "cat" in 1844. The issue of August 15, 1846, contains a personal appeal to the Queen to abolish flogging in the Army. Here is the last stanza of "Lines on the Lash: to the Queen":--

Let thy queenly voice be heard--
Who shall dare to disobey?--
It but costs thy Royal word,
And the lash is cast away.
With thyself it rests to scour
From our arms the loathsome stain;
Then of mercy show thy power,
And immortal be thy reign!

This may not be great poetry, but doggerel verse can be simple and passionate. The appeal was not granted until 1881.

JOHN BULL: "Come, come, you foolish fellow; you don't suppose I'm to be frightened by such a turnip as that!"]

[Sidenote: _The Invasion Scare_]

In 1848 the French invasion scare was in full swing, but _Punch_ maintained an attitude of satirical scepticism. Impetus was lent to the alarm by the letter of Lord Ellesmere to _The Times_, and by the letter of the Duke of Wellington. These were welcomed by _Punch_ as a letting-off of alarmist steam. "Folks who feared an invasion, authorized by Lord Ellesmere and the Duke of Wellington, have said their say, have contributed their quota to absurdity, and, satisfied with the effect, may now rest content for life." In the same vein the suggestion of the formation of a National Guard who should train and practise shooting on Sundays provokes sarcastic comment on this new form of "Sunday balls." The enrolment of Special Constables, as a precaution against the violence of the "physical force" extremists among the Chartists, is a frequent theme of comment generally jocular and unsympathetic.

England's immunity from the general upheaval made for optimism. Cobden in 1848 and 1849 was still in favour with _Punch_ as the "cleverest Cob" in England and the apostle of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." His Arbitration Motion in the latter year met with _Punch's_ cordial approval:--

PEACE AND WAR IN PARLIAMENT

Mr. Cobden took a businesslike view of the question, and by the
practicability of his notions obtained the expressed
goodwill--could more be expected?--of the Prime Minister and the
Foreign Secretary. For ourselves, we entirely accord with the
position of Mr. Cobden, and have a most cheerful faith in the
ultimate prosperity of his doctrines, for they are mingling
themselves with the best thoughts of the people, who are every day
more and more assured that whatever may be the cause of war, they
are the first sacrificed for it; it is they who pay the cost. Just
as the sheep is stripped of his skin for the noisy barbarous drum,
to beat the lie of glory, so are the people stripped to pay for the
music.

The romance of one era is the reality of the next. The Arbitration
Question has taken root, and will grow and spread. They show a
cedar in the gardens at Paris--a cedar of hugest girth and widest
shape--that, some century ago, was brought from Lebanon in the cap
of a traveller. The olive twig, planted by Mr. Cobden in
Westminster, will flourish despite the blighting wit of mess-rooms,
and rise and spread into a tree that shall offer shade and security
to all nations.

In a similar vein is the welcome extended to the Peace Congress in Paris:--

THE PARLIAMENT OF PEACE IN PARIS

Anyway, the cause of peace has been reverently preached, and
reverently listened to, in the warlike city of Paris. Within a walk
of the tomb of the great peace-breaker--who turned kingdoms into
graves, and whose miserable purple was dyed in the heart's blood of
human freedom--even there peace has been worshipped. Napoleon in
his violet robe--beset with golden bees--the bees that, as in the
lion of the olden day, swarmed in carcases--Napoleon, with his
Pope-blessed crown clipping his homicidal brain, is, after all, a
portentous, glistering evil--contrasted with our Quaker friend
[Joseph Sturge], who, risen in the Hall of St. Cecilia, condemns
aggressive war as an abomination, a nuisance that it behoves man,
in this season of his soul's progress, with all his heart and all
his mind, to denounce and renounce as un-Christian, vile, and
brutifying. The drab against the purple; and, in our small
thoughts, the drab, so preaching, carries it.

So, again, _Punch_ breaks a lance in defence of the Peace Congress in the year 1850 at Frankfort. What if it were inspired by visionary aims? All great reformers, idealists and benefactors--Harvey, Jenner, Stephenson--had been ridiculed by unthinking and unimaginative critics:--

TO THE LAUGHERS

The Peace Congress is a capital joke. It's so obvious a subject for
fun that we haven't thought it worth while to waste a laugh on it.
All manner of pens have been poking the public in the ribs about
it--paper pellets of all colours and weights have been slung at
it--arrows from all quivers have been emptied on its vulnerable
sides.

"Preach Peace to the World!" The poor noodles! "Inculcate the
supremacy of right over might!" Ineffable milk-and-water spoonies!
"Hold out to nations brotherhood for warfare, the award of justice
instead of the bayonet!" The white-faced, lily-livered prigs!

"Why, it's the merest Utopianism," says the _Economist_.

"It's neither more nor less than Christianity," sneers the
_Statist_; "Trade is the peace-maker," says the Doctor of the
Manchester School; "Diplomacy keeps the world quiet," jocularly
declares the Red-tapist; "Peace indeed, the designing democrat!"
growls the Absolutist; "Peace, with a bloated Aristocracy still
rampant!" snarls the Red Republican. And they all drown in a chorus
of contemptuous laughter the pleading voices of the poor Peace
Congressists in the Church of St. Paul.

But there are some voices which refuse to join in this chorus. And
there are some, too, of the wise and the great who can discern in
this gathering of friends of peace, this little Babel of various
tongues, this tiny congress of many races, a thing in no way to be
ridiculed any more than the acorn is to be ridiculed when Science
declares that its heart contains the Oak.

The pacificist note had already been sounded when the Duke of Wellington publicly declared in 1849 that it was time ignorance should cease in the Army, on which _Punch_ remarked "When the aforesaid ignorance ceases, how long will the British Army last?" And in the same year, while condemning the Government for refusing to pay for enlarging the National Gallery, he protested against the Naval Estimates as past a joke "when £158,000 might be spent on a frigate including her total loss at sea." On naval matters _Punch_ foretold many things, but he did not foresee the advent or predict the cost of the super-Dreadnought. Indeed, if the truth be told, he was extremely sceptical as to the efficiency of ironclads at all. They were "ferreous freaks": vessels "made in foundries were sure to founder." He is on safer ground altogether when he assails with great spirit and caustic irony the refusal of the Admiralty in 1850 to admit naval surgeons to the wardroom, and proclaimed in vehement accents that he was "made positively ill" by the arguments of those who opposed Captain Boldero's proposals. The status and dignity of Army and Navy doctors and surgeons were near to his heart, and he scornfully resented the view that while "glory may be written on a drum head, it is not to be put down on lint."

The turning point at which _Punch's_ pacificist zeal began to cool was reached in 1849, and the change grew out of a generous sympathy with Italy and Hungary. The repeated warnings addressed by Palmerston to Austria, the independent action which so often embarrassed his colleagues and annoyed his Sovereign, and his support of Turkey in refusing to surrender Kossuth (though he subsequently repudiated any responsibility for his welcome in England), were warmly praised by _Punch_, who welcomed his declaration as a "bugle note." In 1850 _Punch_ waxed humorous at the expense of Sir Francis Head, who wrote a book in which he demonstrated that 150,000 Frenchmen could invade London with the greatest ease. The _coup d'ètat_ of 1851, and suspicion of the aims of Louis Napoleon, whom _Punch_ described as a "perjured homicide," converted him into a supporter of rifle clubs as "patriotic and needful." The Russell Cabinet fell over the Local Militia Bill, Palmerston carrying an amendment which omitted the word "local" from the title of the Bill, so as to make the Militia generally available as an Army Reserve. Palmerston had already resigned, or been dismissed, for exceeding his functions as Foreign Minister by expressing his private approval of the policy of Louis Napoleon, but in spite of this _Punch_ regretted the loss of the strong man of the Cabinet. The year 1852 opened in gloom and misgiving, faithfully reflected in the lines on "Retrospect and Prospect: or 1851 and 1852," with their picture of the anxious vigil of England.

"I'm very sorry, Palmerston, that you cannot agree with your fellow-servants; but as I don't feel inclined to part with John, you must go, of course."]

"Defence not defiance" is the keynote of the appeal, "Speak, Mr. Cobden!" but it foreshadowed a cleavage which was soon to develop into bitter antagonism:--

Armaments useless our money to spend on,
Certainly we should be acting like geese;
_But_ have we any sure ground to depend on,
In trusting our neighbours will leave us at peace?
Speak, Mr. Cobden!

The services of Volunteer Rifle Corps were accepted by the Government, and _Punch_ (who was extremely satirical at the expense of the Oxford University authorities for discouraging the O.U.R.C.) can fairly claim to have been the inventor of _camouflage_ on the strength of the following suggestions as to equipment. Under the heading of "Safety Uniforms" the reader finds:--

In accordance with the practical suggestions of several
distinguished military officers, and others, care has been taken to
provide a great variety of patterns and uniforms, the colours of
which, assimilating to every conceivable shade of surrounding
objects, cause the wearer to present as indistinct a mark as
possible to the enemy's aim. Besides the neutral greys
corresponding to the mixed colours of the heath, and the brown
mixture identical with the colour of the mud, samples have been
manufactured of slate-colour and brick-dust red, calculated for
house-top service amongst the chimney pots, of bright green with
mother-of-pearl and gilt buttons intermingled, adapted for field
fighting in case of an invasion occurring at the time of the
daisies and buttercups, of straw colour for a harvest or stubble
brigade, and of snowy white, which would be a suitable tint if we
were to be attacked simultaneously by the foe and the frost. A
splendid pattern has also been made of cloth of gold and silver,
the dazzling effect of which under a glare of sunshine, in the
midst of a Turneresque landscape, would be such as utterly to
bewilder the aim of the most expert marksman. All these wonderful
uniforms, warranted incapable of being hit, besides a regulation
rifle guaranteed never to miss, to be had at Messrs. Punch and
Co.'s, Army Clothiers, 85, Fleet Street, where every species of
Gentlemanlike Dressing is supplied to those requiring a superior
article and good cut.

[Sidenote: _Death of "The Duke"_]

The challenge to Cobden to declare himself soon gave place to direct attacks on the pacificists, and the death of the Duke of Wellington gave _Punch_ a fresh text on which to expound the doctrine of preparation.

RENDERING UP THE SWORD

Our Arthur sleeps--our Arthur is not dead.
Excalibar shall yet leap from the sheath,
Should e'er invading foot this England tread--
Upstirring, then, his marble tomb beneath.

Our Wellington's undying fire shall burn
Through all our veins--until the foeman say,
"Behold, their Arthur doth to life return!"
And awestruck from the onset shrink away.

Moreover, _Punch_ defends the martial pageantry at the Duke's funeral at this juncture on the ground that it served to show to "Continental despots and bigots with what enthusiasm we yet honour military heroism; that if we have abjured the life of strife, we have not renounced the spirit of valour."

DITTO, No. 2: "Grand Massacre of the French, and Terrible Slaughter of the British Troops."]

[Sidenote: _Outbreak of War_]

Throughout 1852 and 1853 there is a steady _crescendo_ of hostility in the references to Cobden, Bright and the Quaker pacificists. In this, both pen and pencil are wielded with aim and purpose, as evidenced in the cartoon "No danger," and the verses in "Ephraim Smug." In the Russo-Turkish quarrel _Punch's_ long and consistent distrust--to put it mildly--of the Tsar Nicholas was the governing factor which determined him to espouse the side of the Porte, inspired his cartoons "Turkey in Danger" and "Paws off, Bruin," and, most astonishing of all, reconciled him, though most reluctantly, to the alliance with his _bête noire_, the Emperor Napoleon III. For when war came in the spring of 1854 the predictions and misgivings of alarmists and prophets were falsified, and Great Britain was arrayed not against but on the side of France. In the interval dividing the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Turkey from Great Britain's declaration of war on March 28, 1854, _Punch_ threw all his weight into the balance with the War party in the Cabinet, and bitterly resented the alleged pro-Russian sympathies of Lord Aberdeen. These are hinted at in the cartoon in which the Prime Minister is shown with the British Lion saying "I must let him go," and are unmistakably indicated in the charges against Lord Aberdeen of blacking the Tsar's boots, and prosecuting the war in a dilatory and half-hearted way. The Manchester School and the "Pilgrimage to Russia" of the deputation from the Society of Friends to carry to the Tsar their protest against the war are severely handled. On the other hand belief in the righteousness of our cause did not blind _Punch_ to the negligence and worse of those charged with the conduct of military operations and the equipment of our forces. He regrets the typical English attitude, in regard to preparations, that the whole thing was "rather a bore." The need of organized efficiency is preached in every number, and, above all, the debt of honour owed by the nation to the rank and file of our fighting men and to their dependents. Quite early in the war we find this excellent plea on behalf of "The girls they leave behind them":--

It is to be hoped that "A Naval Officer," writing in _The Times_,
will not vainly have called attention to the position in which the
wives of soldiers will be placed by the departure of their husbands
on foreign service for the defence of Europe and mankind against
the enemy Nicholas. As to the soldier's pay, he half starves upon
it himself, and after his semi-starvation there remains not the
value of a crumb to be handed over to his wife and perhaps
children. The girl--and, maybe, the little girls and boys--left by
him have surely a claim superior to that of the mate and progeny of
the lazy clown and the sottish and improvident mechanic. It is just
that relief should be dealt out to them with no parochial hand, but
with a palm a little wider open than that of the relieving officer,
and in a spirit of consideration somewhat more kindly than the
beadle's.

The "Soldier's Dream" of the kind lady who came to visit his wife and children is an appeal to translate the vision into reality. And there were other grievances. The breakdown of the postal service to the seat of war and the injustice of making the recipients pay 2s. for each letter are shown up in "Dead Letters from the Baltic."

[Sidenote: _Song of the Nightingale_]

But this was a minor matter compared with the grievous scandal of the hospitals, disclosed by William Russell, the fearless correspondent of _The Times_, and ultimately remedied by the exertions of Sidney Herbert and, above all, of Florence Nightingale. This had moved the country deeply, and the indignation was not easily allayed. Florence Nightingale's services are repeatedly referred to. She was _Punch's_ chief heroine in these years, from the day of her first mention and the publication of "The Nightingale's Song":--

THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG TO THE SICK SOLDIER

Listen, soldier, to the tale of the tender Nightingale,
'Tis a charm that soon will ease your wounds so cruel,
Singing medicine for your pain, in a sympathizing strain,
With a jug, jug, jug of lemonade or gruel.

Singing bandages and lint, salve and cerate without stint,
Singing plenty both of liniment and lotion,
And your mixtures pushed about, and the pills for you served out,
With alacrity and promptitude of motion.

Singing light and gentle hands, and a nurse who understands
How to manage every sort of application,
From a poultice to a leech; whom you haven't got to teach
The way to make a poppy fomentation.

Singing pillows for you smoothed, smart and ache and anguish soothed,
By the readiness of feminine invention;
Singing fever's thirst allayed, and the bed you've tumbled made,
With a careful and considerate attention.

Singing succour to the brave, and a rescue from the grave,
Hear the Nightingale that's come to the Crimea,
'Tis a Nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song,
To carry out so gallant an idea.

This is only one of a whole series of poems--notably one written at the time of her dangerous illness in May, 1855--inspired by the "Lady of the Lamp," who did not forget, on her side, to acknowledge that the wounded common soldiers had behaved "like gentlemen and Christians to their nurses." Her saintship is secure, in spite of the adroit disparagement of modern iconoclasts; and the verdict of the common soldier was happily expressed by a private at a dinner given to Crimean troops by the people of Folkestone and Hythe in 1856: "We cannot forget Miss Nightingale--nor can we forget mismanagement."

"That's very kind. Maybe one of these days we'll have a coat to stick it on."]

[Sidenote: _Familiar Grievances_]

Florence Nightingale was not forgotten by the nation; the Queen sent her an autograph letter of thanks and a brooch, but no official recognition was bestowed upon her by the British Government until 1907, when she was given the Order of Merit. As for William Russell, _Punch_ laboured in season and out of season to secure some public acknowledgment of his humanity and courage, but the debt remained unpaid for forty years, and was then liquidated by a mere knighthood. The Crimean War was not a great war, judged by modern standards, but it assuredly was not a picnic, and it abounded in prospective plagiarism. Note, for example, the complaint of the treatment of the "Jolly Russian prisoners," in the winter of 1854:--

How jolly the prisoner, who gets for his pay,
From his captor's own purse seven shillings a day!
And that's how we pension our officer-foes,
For which we shall certainly pay through the nose.

The nation that prisoners so handsomely pays
The wages of postmen will probably raise,
And doubtless provide on a grand scale for all
The children and wives of our soldiers who fall.

Note again the criticisms of official reticence about individual acts of bravery in the lines "The Unmentioned Brave: Song by a Commanding Officer," early in 1855:--

Oh! no, we never mention them,
Their names must not be heard,
My hand Routine forbids to trace
Of their exploits one word.
Most glorious though their deeds may be,
To say it I regret,
When they expect a word from me,
They find that I forget.

You say that they are happy now,
The bravest of the brave,
A "special" pen recording how
Mere Grenadiers behave.
Of "special" pens I disapprove,
An inconvenient set,
Who oftentimes the veil remove,
And print what we forget.

The charges of incompetence in the conduct of the war and of greed among those who made profit out of it have a painfully familiar ring. Generals, beginning with Lord Hardinge, were too old; or they were "blundering cavalrymen." Heroism was kept severely in its place or inadequately rewarded, as when a drummer-boy, who had shown conspicuous gallantry at the battle of the Alma, was given £5 by the Prince Consort; or, again, when a gallant sergeant was given a silk handkerchief hemmed by the Queen. Why, asks _Punch_, was he not made an ensign? Of a review of wounded soldiers by the Queen he observes that it would have been more gracious if she had gone to the hospital instead of having the invalids brought up to the palace to be inspected. In the same vein is the dialogue, "Honour to the Brave":--

_Flunkey_ (reads): "Yesterday thirty of the Invalids from the
Crimea were inspected ... many of the gallant fellows were
dreadfully mutilated at the Alma and Inkerman....After the
inspection ten of the Guards were regaled in the Servants' Hall."

_Flunkey_ (loq.): "Regaled in the Servants' 'All! Eh? Well, I don't
think they've any call to grumble about not bein' 'Honoured
Sufficient!'"

LANDLORD: "Well, Mr. Springwheat, according to the papers, there seems to be a probability of a cessation of hostilities."

TENANT (who strongly approves of war prices): "Goodness gracious! Why, you don't mean to say there's any DANGER OF PEACE?"]

[Sidenote: _Combatants and Non-Combatants_]

The navvies who volunteered for service in the Crimea are not forgotten by _Punch_. When cheers are raised for the fighting men and their commanders,

As loud a cheer give, England, to the Navvies' gallant band,
Who have gone to lend our warriors a stalwart helping hand.
These to their work with shovel and crowbar as true will stand
As those to theirs with bayonet, with rifle and with brand.