Chapter IX: Part II: Social Life in Transition (2)

Extravagance invariably leads to reaction; but in this period the reactions were not always sincere--at least not among the "Smart Set." They intermittently played at being serious, but the motive generally savoured of materialism: they were more concerned with conserving their bodies than with saving their souls. It was an age of new and strange Diets and Cures and food-fads. _Punch's_ "Health Seeker's _Vade Mecum_" in 1893 reflects modern pessimism and uncertainty. In 1904, in "Our Doctors," he recalls Mr. Gladstone's tribute to Sir Andrew Clark, but his appreciation and eulogy of medical worthies was a good deal discounted by his linking the names of Jenner and Gull with those of Morell Mackenzie and Robson Roose. Neurotics were now to be found in unexpected quarters. In 1899 Phil May has a picture of an admiral kept awake all night by a butterfly that went flopping about his room.

The movement for learning "First Aid" had already become fashionable--and to that extent futile--and in 1901, in "Courtship _à la_ Galton," _Punch_ mildly satirizes the creed of Eugenics, as illustrated by the union of two Galtonites, despising sentiment, but possessing diplomas of matrimonial fitness. Romance and Hygiene seldom go hand-in-hand. The "Simple Life" was another favourite cult and catchword; but its votaries were for the most part "affecting to seem unaffected."

[Sidenote: _Smart Simplicity_]

American visitors flooded London for the Coronation of 1902, and _Punch_ makes good play with a statement in a weekly review that "the old-world simplicity of rural life is unique and has an unfailing charm for our Transatlantic visitors." This was and is true of the best of them, but _Punch_ turned the announcement to legitimate ridicule in "Arcady, Ltd.," with its "faked" rusticity, carefully rehearsed and organized to cater for the taste of wealthy explorers. The cry of "Back to the Land" is illustrated in the futile efforts of fashionables pretending to assist in the harvest field: it is ironically commended in 1906 to exhausted _débutantes_ as the best form of cure for the fatigues of the London season. The "Simple Life," as practised by well-to-do dyspeptics and the unindustrious rich, was in his view a complete fraud, for they were really preoccupied with the material side of existence. Hence the adoption of weird unknown foods and clothing. In 1910 "Blanche" gives us to understand that the craze for abstinence had even invaded the "Smart Set":--

A good many people are going in for the No-food cult, the Dick
Flummerys among others. Indeed, dinners and suppers seem to be by
way of becoming extinct functions. Dick says that till you've been
without food for a week you don't know what you're really capable
of. I don't think that would be a very reassuring thing to hear from
anyone looking as wild and haggard as Dick does now, if one happened
to be _tête-à-tête_ with, him and some knives! Dotty tells me that,
with their tiny house and small means, they find entertaining much
easier now they belong to the No-food set. Their little rooms will
hold _twice_ as many no-fooders as ordinary people, she says, and then
there's no expense of feeding 'em. No, indeed. At the Flummerys', when
your partner asks, "What shall I get you?" he merely adds, "_Hot_ or
_cold_ water?"

In general, however, these rigours were confined to intellectual or pseudo-intellectual coteries, of which a good representative is to be found in the hatless and sandalled youth depicted in May, 1912--not unnaturally classed as a tramp by the old Highland shepherd--who evidently belongs to the type ingeniously described as that of the "Herbaceous Boarder." In 1913, in "a chronicle of Cures, with the Biography of a Survivor," _Punch_ briefly traces the progress of fads in food, drink and hygiene in the past half-century. He begins with light sherry, goes on with Gladstone claret, deviates into the water cure, takes to whisky and soda, then to cocoa nibs, and winds up with paraffin. Simultaneously and successively the survivor abandons "prime cuts" for vegetarianism; relapses to carnivorous habits under the auspices of Salisbury (the apostle of half-cooked beef and hot-water) and Fletcher (who found salvation in chewing); then took to Plasmon with Eustace Miles, lactobacilline in accordance with the prescription of Metchnikoff, and finally developed into a full-blown disciple of osteopathy. The list is not by any means complete, for no mention is made of Dr. Haig or of China tea, or the uncooked vegetable cure. But it will serve as a rough survey of the romance and reality of modern dietetics.

When I said that smart people were more concerned with their bodies than their souls, this must not be taken to imply a complete disregard for the things of the spirit. We hear little in _Punch_ of Spiritualism, but a certain amount about occultism. "Auras" and their colours and meanings were attracting attention in 1903, and in 1906 the "mascot" craze had reached such a pitch that _Punch_ was moved to intervene. If, he contends, we _must_ have mascots, they had better be duly examined and licensed. The "Smart Set," again, always anxious to advertise their worship of pleasure, were not immune from the denunciations of popular preachers. The fiery fulminations of Father Bernard Vaughan did not escape _Punch's_ amused notice. In 1907 the results of this crusade are foreshadowed in a series of pictures in which the "Smart Set" are exhibited as converts to decorum, simplicity and sanity. They have taken to serious pursuits--part-singing and photography. They frequent cheap restaurants and, as motorists, develop an unfamiliar consideration for the foot passenger. The irony and scepticism underlying these forecasts is further shown in the burlesque "Wise Words on Wedlock" by "Father Vaughan Tupper," in the following year--a string of extracts from his "great sermon," in which worldly wisdom is mixed with sonorous platitudes.

[Sidenote: _Caste and "The Social Fetish"_]

While complaints of the decline of manners are constant, evidences frequently recur of the worship of "good form" and the efforts made to keep it up. In 1900 _Punch_ pillories an advertisement which offered coaching to "strangers, colonials, Americans and foreigners on matters of high English etiquette and fashion"; but in the same year it requires a certain amount of reading between the lines to dissociate _Punch_ from the sentiments expressed in the verses on Caste:--

"Kind hearts are more than coronets,"
I know this must of course be true;
It is the same old sun that sets
On high and low, that rises too.
What matters it for whom you buy
The ring of diamonds and pearls,
A maid whose birth is none too high,
Or daughter of a hundred earls?

If you're content that she should be--
Well, not exactly as you are,
The trifling difference in degree
May only very seldom jar.
Intolerance we should suppress,
An attribute of fools and churls,
Yet I prefer, I must confess,
The daughter of a hundred earls.

It may, perhaps, be fair to regard this as a piece of impersonation--a point of view--rather than an editorial pronouncement. Anyhow, _Punch_ was perfectly sound in his ridicule of the aristocratic pseudo-Socialist who wished to have it both ways, and of the gullibility or snobbery of reporters who ministered to her vanity. Suburban pretensions to smartness are also chaffed in the picture of the mother rebuking her daughter for relapsing to "Pa" and "Ma" instead of calling her parents "Pater" and "Mater."

What _Punch_ could not stand, and to his credit never had stood, was the inverted snobbery of those who professed to despise the privileges and the shibboleths of rank, while all the time they took the utmost pains to let you know that they belonged to the class which claimed those privileges and that they were incapable of violating its shibboleths. This old game, revived with considerable skill by Lady Grove in her treatise on The Social Fetish, in which great stress is laid on the test of pronunciation, was mercilessly exposed in its true colours by _Punch_ in 1907. The article is an extremely workmanlike, polite, but damaging criticism of an odious but ancient habit--that of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Another old custom--the mutual abuse in public of politicians who were bosom friends in private--was revived with such gusto in these years as to elicit _Punch's_ comment of "Pals before Party."

M.P.'S WIFE: "I say, Archie, it's a shame to abuse poor Roddy as you did in your speech last night. After all, he's your best pal, although he _is_ on the other side."

M.P.: "My dear girl, that's nothing to what he's going to say about me to-morrow. He's shown me his speech, and I'm jotting down a few additional epithets for him to stick in."]

Though manners were in a state of flux, etiquette still survived. The orthodox horror felt by the smart man about town at anyone of his own class carrying a parcel in the streets was, if _Punch_ is to be believed, still prevalent in 1908; the characteristic British avoidance of sentiment is illustrated a year later in the salutation, "Hallo! old man. How are you, and how are your people, and all that sort of silly rot?" Characteristic, again, of British understatement is the reply of a V.C. to the question, "Say, how did you get that el'gant little cross?" put to him by a fair American: "Oh, I dunno. Pullin' some silly rotter out of a hole." The change that had come over the relations between Society and professional actors, musicians and authors is shown in the picture of the long-haired genius who remarks, "And is this the first time you've met me, Duchess?" The Duchess is reduced to speechlessness, and takes refuge in a petrifying stare. That was in 1908, and the picture forms a good pendant to the affable Duchess of Du Maurier, who in a similar position had remarked: "You must really get someone to introduce you to me." Writing on the necessary attributes of a Lion of the Season in 1899, _Punch_ placed an interesting personality first: literary lions were no longer popular, as most people now wrote books. Pursuing the inquiry farther, he gives special preference to travellers and athletes:--

[Sidenote: _Social Lions_]

_Q._ Then what is the best mode of becoming a Lion?

_A._ By discovering a new continent or suffering imprisonment amongst
cannibals for five or six years.

_Q._ And what is the reward of such a time of misery?

_A._ A fortnight's _fêting_ in Belgravia and Mayfair.

_Q._ Is this sufficient?

_A._ More than enough. The fawning of Society begins to pall after a
week's experience of its cloying sweetness.

_Q._ Is there any celebrity other than literary or exploratory capable
of securing the attention of Mrs. Leo Hunter and her colleagues?

_A._ Prowess in the cricket field is a recognized path to social
success.

_Q._ And has not an amateur cricketer an advantage over other
competitors for fashionable fame?

_A._ Yes; he can claim his days for matches and his nights for rest.

_Q._ From the tone of your last answer it would seem that you do not
consider the lot of a Society Lion a happy one?

_A._ You are right; but the _fêted_ one has the satisfaction of
knowing that the fevered notoriety of a brief season is usually
followed by the restful obscurity of a long lifetime.

It is enough, by way of explanation, to add that when _Punch_ wrote, the names of Mr. Walter Savage Landor and M. de Rougemont were on every lip. Fifteen years later, actors, boxers and, above all, dancers, male and female, were the favourite quarry of social lion-hunters. There was nothing very new about this tendency: it was as old as ancient Athens and had its roots in the everlasting human love of variety, in the desire at all costs to escape from dullness and routine. In 1909 a girl at Bristol who attempted to commit suicide received eighteen offers of marriage, and the _Daily Chronicle_ reported that Mme. Steinheil, on the mere suspicion of having murdered her husband, was receiving similar proposals every day. This was at a time when, according to the same journal, there were thousands of young women in Bristol with certificates of competency as teachers, wives, and scholars, many of whom could not find husbands. _Punch_ enlarges on this theme with philosophical irony. Security and respectability were apt to be dreary and monotonous, and it must at least be lively to be married to a poisoner.

Turning back to the minor etiquette of Mode, we note that by 1903 evening dress was no longer insisted on in the more expensive seats at the theatres, though in 1906 the _Lancet_ was alleged to have recommended evening dress as indicative of "tone" and conducive to hygiene. _Punch_ had long before declaimed against the tyranny of paying "calls." In 1907 he alludes to the practice as obsolete, and suggests that ladies, instead of having "At Home" days, should be out on certain days, so as to give their friends a safe opportunity for leaving cards.

_Punch_ had for many years ceased from criticizing the manners of medical students, which occupied so much of his attention fifty years earlier; the most serious of his comments on professional manners were excited by "ragging" amongst officers in the Army. The protest, which he printed in 1896, purported to come from the ranks, and is based on the assumption that leadership was impaired when officers forgot to be gentlemen. At the Universities, _Punch_ was evidently concerned by the multiplication of prigs. Early in the new century Balliol was, as usual, singled out as the principal hot-bed for the propagation of this type, but _Punch_ paid that college a remarkable if reluctant tribute. He enumerated all the different species of undergraduates to be found there; keen laborious Scots, Ruskinite road-builders, and converts to Buddhist, Gnostic and Agnostic theories; but admitted that if Balliol contained all the cranks, it also contained the coming men--the men who would count. That curious Balliol product which emerged about this time, the "intellectual 'blood,'" seems to have escaped _Punch's_ notice. At the end of the last century he notes the invasion of schools by the bicycle, and speculates fantastically on its results. As a matter of fact, bikes were afterwards largely proscribed in public and private schools, and the ban has not even yet been wholly removed.

FIRST TOURIST: "Care to use these glasses?"

SECOND TOURIST: "No, thanks. Seen it all on the cinema 't 'ome!"]

[Sidenote: _An Appeal to Santa Claus_]

Fashion has many phases; and children's Christmas presents reflect the popular tastes of the moment. In 1908 _Punch_ printed the appeal of a little girl to Santa Claus to help her to avoid getting as many as possible of the same presents. This last Christmas it had been "perfectly absurd"--an endless iteration of _Peter Pan_ story books, Golliwogs and copies of _Alice in Wonderland_, illustrated by Rackham and other artists. The sacrilegious attempt to supersede Tenniel's classical designs naturally met with no sympathy from _Punch_, and, what is more to the point, did not prove a success.

Not a few of _Punch's_ old social butts and pet aversions disappear at the end of the century--including the old "'Arry." One of 'Arry's last efforts was to rejoice over the defeat of women at Oxford, and another was to describe how he was teaching his "best girl" how to pedal. The "Twelve Labours of 'Arry," as depicted by Phil May in the Almanack for 1896, in which he is seen on the rink, the river, hunting, shooting, driving tandem, boxing, playing cricket, golfing, bicycling, etc., introduce a new type indistinguishable from the "new rich" in dress and deportment. The new type of tourist depicted in 1912 lacks the exuberance of the old, and his _nil admirari_ attitude is attributed to the "educative" influence of the "pictures."

FASHION IN DRESS

From the very earliest times the evolution of dress has been governed by two contending principles--Protection and Decoration; and the student of "primitive culture" will find these principles asserting themselves even in our own highly sophisticated times. One need not be an expert in psycho-analysis to trace in modern fashions the survival of the primitive instinct of decoration or the conflict between the irrational and the rational selves which is writ large in the annals of Mode. Profoundly conscious of my own incompetence to deal adequately with this fascinating and momentous subject, I nevertheless venture to submit that Laxity is the outstanding feature or "note" of the period now under review. It is an ambiguous term, but none the less suitable on that account, for laxity in its original sense implies a looseness which conduces to comfort, while, in its later and ethical use, it stands for irregularity, extravagance and eccentricity. Both meanings are richly exemplified in the fashions which prevailed in the years 1892-1914; but it must be admitted that, on the score of a wise laxity, man was more "rational" than woman in endeavouring to reconcile the claims of comfort and adornment. Women's dress is far more various, interesting, amusing and even exciting, but on the principle that one should keep one's cake for the end, I prefer to begin with the mere bread-and-butter of male costume. _Punch_, as my readers may remember, had in his earlier days inveighed against the rigidity and discomfort of men's dress, the tyranny of the top-hat and the strangulation of tight-fitting collars. In middle age, we find him more of a stickler for propriety of costume. Thus in 1893 he describes, with affected amazement, the strange garb adopted by fashionable young men for their morning exercise in the Park between nine and eleven--a straw hat worn on the back of the head, an unbuttoned coat, no waistcoat and flannel trousers. Simultaneously one of his artists depicts the strange and casual attire of M.P.s in the House of Commons in August--tweeds and knickerbockers, sombreros, caps, and even blazers. Yet, with an inconsistency which did credit to his humane instincts, _Punch_, at the close of the same year, assails the high stiff collar worn by young men of fashion and refrains, in 1894, from any serious comment on an article in the _Scotsman_ on the laxity of costume characteristic of modern Oxford. "Straw hats and brown boots appear to abound everywhere," while "bowlers" were gradually discarded. When the centenary of the top-hat arrived in 1897, _Punch_ suggested that its abolition would be a suitable way of celebrating the year of Jubilee. But the "top-hat" had its defenders as well as detractors, and the "pros" and "cons" of the correspondence in _The Times_ are admirably summed up in _Punch's_ article:--

It would be advisable, or inadvisable, as the case may be, to abolish
It in the Jubilee Year.

Because all the scarecrows in the country are already fitted.

Because It is the hall-mark of human dignity, and, combined with a
smile, is sufficient by Itself, without any other costume, to stamp
the wearer as one of Nature's Noblemen, whether he be a Missing Link
or a King of the Cannibal Islands.

Because It is indispensable, as part of the stock-in-trade of
conjurers, for the production of live rabbits, pots of flowers,
interminable knotted handkerchiefs, and other useful and necessary
articles.

Because no Harrow boy is happy till he gets It.

Because It is a decided protection in a street fight, or when you fall
out hunting or coming home late from the Club.

Because It only needs to be carefully sat on to make an excellent and
noiseless substitute for the concertina.

Because no self-respecting Guy, Bridegroom, or 'Bus-driver is ever
seen without one.

Because It is a very effective counterpart of the Matinée hat at
Lord's, and similar gatherings.

Because, to be at all in the fashion, and to look decently dressed,
you require a fresh one every day. This is good for the trade.

Because It stimulates the manufacture of umbrellas, eye-glasses,
hansom-cabs, frock-coats, hair-restorers, and forcible language.

Because no one has yet ventured to wear It on the all-prevalent
bicycle.

Because no statue has ever had the face to sport It, with very few
deplorable exceptions.

Because It is really the most becoming headgear hitherto devised.

Because It is really the most unbecoming headgear hitherto devised.

Because, after a hundred years, it is time we had a change.

Because, when a thing has been running for a century, it is a pity to
abolish It.

Because, if It is abolished, the custom of raising It to ladies will
perish as well, and there will follow the Extinction of Manners
for Men, the Decadence of Church Parade, the General Cutting of
Acquaintances, the re-introduction of Thumb-biting, Nose-pulling,
Duelling, and Civil War, the disappearance of Great Britain as a
first-class Power, the establishment of a Reign of Terror, and much
inconvenience.

Because I have recently purchased an Extra Special Loyal and
Up-to-Date Jubilee Tile, which I hope to wave, throw up, and generally
smash and sacrifice on the Great Occasion.

But that is not another story.

[Sidenote: _Fashions in Hats_]

_Punch_ had already referred to Its disuse on the cricket field. The mention of statues in top-hats is not an effort of imagination: Dr. Grigor, to whom Nairn owes so much of its popularity as a health resort, is thus attired in the stone effigy of him which stands in the centre of the town. The tall hat, though now seldom seen except at weddings and funerals, has survived its centenary; but new fashions in headgear date from 1897, when _Punch's_ "Stifled Stockbroker" rejoices, when the thermometer stood at ninety in the shade, in the relief afforded by his Panama and Pyjamas.

The appearance of the Homburg Hat is chronicled in 1900, but not in a complimentary manner. "Bertie's new hat," according to a satirical young lady, "looks as though somebody had begun excavating to find his brains, and had given it up in despair." There was another heat wave this year, and _Punch_ notices that straw hats were worn at Sandown, while the horses in Paris were "wearing straw bonnets to protect them from the heat," a practice adopted in subsequent years in London. The "boom" in sandals in 1901 belongs more to Hygiene than to Fashion, but, if _Punch_ is to be believed, it was not confined to health cranks and children; and in the Sapphic stanza of Canning's "Needy Knife-grinder" he gives voice to the indignant protest of the London shoeblack. Another sartorial centenary, that of trousers, fell in the year 1902, but _Punch's_ appeal to the poets to celebrate it in song remained unanswered. Meanwhile a young peer was credited by a society journal with the intention of forming a League in order to differentiate men's evening dress from that of a waiter, but _Punch_ failed to see in the venture any sign of _noblesse oblige_. By 1902 the Panama Hat had been vulgarized by 'Appy 'Arry; and a year later _Punch_ speaks of "the late Panamania." It had gone out of fashion in New York, being superseded by the ordinary stiff straw hat, and _Punch_ anticipated that the "slump" would also cross the Atlantic.

HER CANDID SISTER: "Well, dear, I think it looks as though somebody had begun excavating to find his brains, and had given it up in despair."]

[Sidenote: _Novelties v. Revivals_]

There is one grand distinction between men and women in regard to dress. Women (or those who dictate their fashions) are divided between novelties and revivals, and the revivals are generally of the most outrageous absurdities. It is otherwise with the simple male. He deals far less in revivals, and when he hits upon a good novelty he generally sticks to it. In this category I would unhesitatingly include the brown boot, to which _Punch_ devoted the following instructive article, modelled on the style of the _Daily Mail_, in the year 1903:--

THE CULT OF THE BROWN BOOT

No serious student of dermatology can have avoided noticing the
enormous increase in the use of brown boots in the last quarter of a
century. In 1879 a clubman would no more have thought of walking down
Pall Mall in brown boots than of flying. But now even archdeacons
frequent the Athenæum Club in that ubiquitous footwear.

Necessity is probably the mother of invention, as Lord Avebury has
pointedly remarked, and the introduction of the brown boot is due,
according to a well-known Bond Street maker, to the exigencies
of a retired General, who, finding it difficult to get his boots
adequately blacked at his chambers, suggested, as a solution of his
embarrassment, that it might be possible to devise a form of boot
in which blacking could be entirely dispensed with. The example at
once provoked imitation, and now it is estimated by Dr. Nicholson
Roberts in the _Bootman_ that in London alone 1,250,000 pairs of
tawny-coloured footgear are sold in the year.

Boots, it may not be generally known, are made from the hides of
various animals, terrestrial and marine. The skin is removed after the
animal has been slaughtered, not before, and is then subjected to a
variety of preliminary processes of a mollifying character, of which
the most important is that of tanning. Tan, or tannin, as it is more
correctly called, is a substance of a friable texture and a highly
pronounced but hygienic odour. It is principally found in Indian
tea, whence it is extracted by machinery especially designed for the
purpose, and stored in tanyards. It is also occasionally used to
deaden the sound of traffic and provide equestrians with a substratum
calculated to minimize the wear and tear of their horses' hoofs. Dogs
of certain breeds are also technically described as being "black and
tan."

The process of bootmaking, of which the headquarters is at
Northampton, will be familiar to all who have attended the
performances of Wagner's opera _Die Meistersinger_. It involves
the use of powerful cutting instruments, cobbler's wax, needles,
thread, and other implements, and the principal terms in its somewhat
extensive terminology are vamp, welt, upper leathers, and nether sole.
Bootmakers, like tailors, commonly sit cross-legged at their work, and
hold pronounced political views; hence the term freebooter. But it has
been noted that the makers of brown boots incline to Liberal Unionism.
Their patron saint is Giordano Bruno, and in theology they affect
latitudinarianism.

The term "brown boots," it should also be noted, is a misnomer, as it
includes shades of yellow, orange, and russet. Army men affect the
latter, while stockbrokers and solicitors prefer the former.

In conclusion it may be worth while to record certain established
rules, the disregard of which may have untoward consequences. Black
laces do not harmonize well with brown boots, nor is it _de rigueur_
to wear them with a frock-coat, or when in evening or court dress.

(A study in Bond Street)]

The information here imparted must be accepted with certain reserves, and the same remark holds good of _Punch's_ picture of Church Parade in 1906, where hatless "nuts" smoking pipes, wearing Panama hats, knickerbockers and even dressing-gowns, are shown mingling with more correctly attired pedestrians. But, allowing for exaggeration, the picture reflects a real tendency--towards greater comfort and less convention in dress. The "nut" depicted in 1907 wears a coat with a pronounced waist, and highly coloured hose, but in 1910 _Punch_ descants lyrically on the announcement, made by the _Daily Express_, that "the reign of the passionate sock is over," though a man might "still let himself go in handkerchiefs." The poet ironically bewails the fiat which dooms our socks henceforth to silence:--

There is a power, my friends,
That disciplines our loud-hued nether ends.

Still, he consoles himself with the reflection that he still can wear his heart "up his sleeve," thus recalling the new definition of a gentleman given some years earlier in suburban circles as one who wore his handkerchief up his cuff.

VISITOR: "Well, I don't wish to appear ungrateful, but I should like to lie down!"]

[Sidenote: _Passionate Socks and Knickerbockers_]

Owing to the increasing skimpiness of skirts and the cult of slimness, the approximation of male and female attire reached a point in 1911 which suggested to one of _Punch's_ artists a new Sex Question puzzle. But while the female "nut" was becoming indistinguishable from the male, the male golfer had come to affect a bagginess of knickerbockers recalling the exuberance of the female cyclist of two decades earlier, and, as _Punch_ showed, exceedingly ill-suited for progress in a high wind.

AGAINST THE WIND WITH THE WIND

Disastrous influence of the sea-breezes on the modern "nut" coiffure. Recently witnessed by our artist at a popular watering-place.]

Throughout this period whiskers remained in disfavour with all men of fashion, though they lingered on among the elderly and the middle-aged. Pianists, artists and literary geniuses still wore their hair long. The value of a beard in correcting an imperfect profile was admirably illustrated in Du Maurier's picture of the complacent Admiral in 1894, and naval officers, then and now, availed themselves of a privilege denied to the other Service, without any loss of trimness and smartness of appearance. The "toothbrush" moustache dates back to pre-War days, and its popularity was not impaired when early in 1914 the General commanding the Prussian Guards Corps forbade its adoption as "not consonant with the German national character." Waxed ends to the moustache were now only worn by policemen, taxi-drivers and Labour leaders. But the outstanding feature of male _coiffure_ during the latter part of this period was the adoption of the practice of liberally oiling or pomading the hair and brushing it right back over the head without any parting. Whence the practice came I do not know, but it became almost universal amongst "nuts," undergraduates and the senior boys at our public schools. _Punch_ did not admire the fashion, but it must have been a gold mine to all dealers in bear's grease, brilliantine, Macassar's "incomparable oil," and all manner of unguents simple or synthetic.

[Sidenote: _Revival of Crinoline Threatened_]

_Punch's_ chronicle of feminine fashion opens in 1893 with the menace of a return of the crinoline, the bare mention of which was enough to upset his equanimity, for his seven years' war against it had by his own admission been more or less of a failure:--

CRINOLINE

Rumour whispers, so we glean
From the papers, there have been
Thoughts of bringing on the scene
This mad, monstrous, metal screen,
Hiding woman's graceful mien.
Better Jewish gaberdine
Than, thus swelled out, satin's sheen!
Vilest garment ever seen!
Form unknown in things terrene;
Even monsters pliocene
Were not so ill-shaped, I ween.
Women wearing this machine,
Were they fat or were they lean--
Small as Wordsworth's celandine,
Large as sail that's called lateen--
Simply swept the pavement clean:
Hapless man was crushed between
Flat as any tinned sardine.
Thing to rouse a Bishop's spleen,
Make a Canon or a Dean
Speak in language not serene.
We must all be very green,
And our senses not too keen,
If we can't say what we mean,
Write in paper, magazine,
Send petitions to the Queen,
Get the House to intervene.
Paris fashion's transmarine--
Let us stop by quarantine
Catastrophic Crinoline!

"Oh, Mummy, have you been vaccinated on _both_ arms?"]

Du Maurier, in a picture which serves as a pendant to one which appeared in November, 1857, contrasts the Misses Roundabout's inflated circumference with the graceful lines of the normal skirt, but the warning was happily unnecessary and the threatened danger never materialized. Another revival, that of the "Coal-scuttle" bonnet, was not nearly so formidable, but it enabled _Punch_ to indulge in a characteristic gibe at the headgear of the "loud Salvation lasses." The mania for expansion had ascended, and the fashion of large puffed sleeves in the same year prompted the criticism of the little girl: "Oh, Mummy, have you been vaccinated on _both_ arms?" For many years huge hats continued to offend _Punch's_ sense of proportion. In 1893 he contrasts the small flat sailor-hat worn at the seaside with the monstrosities in vogue in London, and in 1894 I note the first of his many tirades against the "Matinée Hat." In the 'fifties _Punch_ had derided "Bloomerism"; now he was momentarily converted to the introduction of "rational" dress for women cyclists. Thus in 1894 he defended the innovation with pen and pencil against the protests of Mrs. Grundy, that "great Goose Autocrat, the Palladium of Propriety, the Ægis of social morality," and attacked her inconsistency in banning knickerbockers while she acquiesced in audacious _décolletage_. The lady in knickerbockers portrayed in 1895 is a distinctly attractive figure though she owns that she had adopted them not to ride a bicycle, but because she had got a sewing machine.

[Sidenote: _Matinée Hats and Russian Blouses_]

Hats and balloon sleeves occupy a good deal of notice in 1895 and 1896. In an ingenious parody of Keats's "_La Belle Dame sans Merci_," _Punch_ denounces the use of "mixed plumes" in women's hats, and the poet is left

alone and sadly loitering
While the sedge shakes not with the glancing plumes
And no birds sing.

The nuisance of the matinée hat had roused the ire of the male playgoer. _Punch_ compared it to the Eiffel Tower and to a Tower of Babel on top of a garden bed. The obstruction in Parliament was nothing to it; and on reading that large theatre hats had been prohibited in Ohio, he was ready to admit that here, at any rate, we might Americanize our modes to good purpose. Floral decorations had reached such a pitch of extravagance as to warrant the remark of the loafer to a lady wearing a huge beflowered hat: "Want a _gardener_, Miss?" Signs of sanity, however, were recognized in the announcement that Parisian _couturières_ had issued a fiat against wasp waists, and were going to take the Venus of Milo henceforth as their model, though _Punch_ was rather sceptical of the results of this bold move, which in his view would cause consternation in the ranks of the fashion-plate designers. The Venus of Milo, by the way, has in 1922 been "turned down" by a fashionable Chicago lady as utterly early Victorian.

Passing over the introduction of the "bolero" coat and the brief revival of the early Victorian bonnet in 1897, we come in 1898 to one of the first instances of the Russian invasion--the appearance of the Russian blouse. _Punch_ describes it as the same back and front, with a kind of ruff below the waist which sticks out stiffly all round. It required four times as much stuff as was necessary, but provided room to stow away a fair-sized sewing machine without detection. The "Medici Collar," another novelty, or revival, of the year, is caricatured in a picture which gives the impression of a "bearded lady"; while the enormously lofty trimmings of hats are reported (on the authority of the _Daily Telegraph_) to have obliged carriage-makers to lower the seats of many closed vehicles. Knickerbockers had already gone out of fashion, even for bicycling, and _Punch_ unchivalrously compares them with the baggy nether-wear of Dutchmen.

Skirts were still worn tight but very long, so long that the shade of Queen Bess is invoked to express her wonder how the modern woman could walk at all, and _Punch_ suggests a new occupation for the London street boys as trainbearers. In 1899 the new colour was "_rouge automobile_," described as _très-chic_ or _teuf-teuf_--the Parisian argot for the noisy motor of the hour.

The _Hairdresser_ announced that "this year hair is to be worn green," but the statement appears to have been premature. _Punch_ again fulminates against the persistent Plumage Scandal--this time in a picture of the "Extinction of Species," typified by a ferocious fashion-plate lady with a plumed hat surrounded by plucked egrets. _A propos_ of headgear, it may be added that in the Coronation year of 1902 _Punch_ issued a Proclamation to all women not to wear large hats at the ceremony and so cause annoyance, vexation, desperation and profanity to sightseers. His Schedule comprises Gainsboroughs, Bergères, Tricornes, Plateaux, Lady Blessington, Rustic, Picture and Matinée hats--a tolerably comprehensive list.

From 1903 onwards large bag-shaped muffs came prominently into view, and _Punch_ ungallantly emphasizes their value as a means of hiding large hands. The outstanding feature of this and the next year is the influence of motoring on dress. Here, according to _Punch_, decoration was entirely sacrificed to comfort: the motorist swathed in furs is compared to the bear, the mountain goat, the chimpanzee and the Skye terrier. In 1904 he notes the universal adoption of the motor-cap, even by those who never owned or rode in a motor-car. For the rest, the "clinging style" of dress, with long skirts and long hanging sleeves, was generally in vogue. Mrs. Roundabout fears that it would make her look "so dreadfully emaciated," but rotundity of figure had ceased to be the rule even with the middle-aged. Fashionable women, apart from their motor costumes, continued to display their wonderful disregard for the rigours of the climate, a trait which is faithfully dealt with in _Punch's_ verses on the "Pneumonia Blouse."

[Sidenote: _Revival of the Directoire Style_]

By 1904 skirts were beginning to be appreciably shortened, but, as a set-off, fashionable women indemnified themselves by the length and expansiveness of their sleeves:--

Her sleeves are made in open bags
Like trousers in the Navy;
No more she sweeps the streets, but drags
Her sleeves across the gravy.

Elaborate bathing dresses, exhibiting a gradual tendency to reduce the amount of material, are henceforth a frequent subject of illustration. In 1905 _Punch's_ fair bathers remain on the shore and never enter the water as it would absolutely spoil their dresses. We hear less of the matinée hat, but the enormous _coiffures_ depicted in 1907 proved hardly less objectionable to those who sat behind them; and as for hats, the more grotesque and absurd they were the stronger was their appeal. The new hats in 1907, with the brim large at the back, have a sort of sou'-wester effect; and the towering monstrosities depicted at the close of the year make "busbys" look small: Mars is eclipsed by Venus. In 1908 _Punch_ chronicles the advent of the latest importation from France, the revived "Directoire" costume as worn at Longchamps:--

Long languid lines unbroken by a frill,
Superfluous festoons reduced to nil,
A figure like a seal reared up on end
And poking forward with a studied bend;

A shortish neck imprisoned in a ruff,
Skin-fitting sleeves that show a stint of stuff,
A waist promoted halfway up the back,
And not a shred that's comfortably slack;

A multitude of buttons, row on row,
Not there for business--merely made for show;
A skirt whose meagre gores necessitate
The waddle of a Chinese lady's gait;

A "busby" toque extinguishing the hair,
As if a giant hand had crushed it there--
Behold the latest mode! and write beneath,
"A winter blossom bursting from its 'sheath.'"

I. Mrs. Browne, Mrs. Browne, junior, and Mrs. Browne, junior's little girl, as they were in 1901, and--

II. As they are to-day.]

[Sidenote: _Fashion Plate Heroines_]

Miss Maud Allan had not yet been ousted from her eminence by the Russian Ballet and by real dancing, and the repercussion of the cult of the "all-but-altogether" on fashionable costume is well satirized by _Punch_ in this year. By reducing materials to an irreducible minimum this new mania, as _Punch_ logically argues, was likely to be ruinous to trade as well as to railway porters and carriers, since large trunks were no longer necessary and a whole wardrobe could be carried in a handbag or suitcase. Another view of the situation is expressed in the comment of the wife of the frugal Scot who had protested against the idea of her taking to this "awfu' gear": "Hoots, mon! Dinna ye see it's just made wi' aboot hauf the material." Conflicting tendencies can always be simultaneously illustrated in the vagaries of feminine fashion, for along with this alarming "skimpiness" went the cult of huge fur head-dresses and muffs with animals' muzzles thereon. In the lines quoted above the arrival of the "hobble" or "harem" skirt is foreshadowed. In 1910 this strange Oriental monstrosity is ridiculed in the picture of the girl hopping to catch her train, as running was out of the question, and again in the comment of the navvy who feels that _he_ is at last in the fashion with his knee-straps.

[Sidenote: _The Perversities of Mode_]

The progress of fashion in the decade 1901-1911 is well illustrated in the parallel groups given in the latter year and showing the change from homely comfort to aggressive scantiness. Even better is the admirable representation--it is hardly a caricature--of the old and new types of fashion plate; the former insipid and simpering lay figures, the latter sinister modern Messalinas. Beyond an increasing tendency to extravagance and eccentricity and the general use of paint there is little to note in the remaining years of this period. The brief reign of the "pannier" skirt impelled _Punch_, under the heading of "Pockets at last," to indicate how use might here be combined with so-called ornament. The big-hat craze continued; the habit of poking the head forward--noted in the verses on the "Directoire" style--became so pronounced that "backbones were out of fashion" and an erect deportment made a woman "look all wrong"; while the inconsistent perversity of winter fashions is satirized in the lady with her bodice slit down to the diaphragm walking with a gentleman in a heavy overcoat and a thick muffler; and again in the "Spartan mother," swathed in furs, accompanied by her hatless, bare-legged children. Lastly, on the very eve of the War, _Punch_ gives a pictorial table of the relative importance of the persons engaged in the production of a revue. The costumier heads the list: at the other end are the composer and a group of authors.

LETTERS AND JOURNALISM

In letters, as in life, the passing of "the old order" was already apparent at the opening of the period under review in this volume. For in 1892 the author of the lines immortally associated with the phrase himself passed away, full of years and honours. _Punch_ had always been a Tennysonian, even in the days when the Laureate was still looked upon as an innovator. He had given Tennyson the hospitality of his columns in 1846 to retort on Bulwer Lytton, who had attacked "School-miss Alfred" in _The New Timon_. Finally, when Tennyson was laid to rest in the Abbey, _Punch_ saluted him without reserve as the chief glory of Victorian minstrelsy. The memorial verses are too long to quote, for _Punch_ in his elegiac moods was still inclined to prolixity, but they deal adequately with the spirit and influence, the consummate art, and the fervent patriotism of one who, after various fluctuations of prestige, is even now being re-discovered by Georgian critics.

The vacant laureateship was not filled till the close of 1895, when the appointment of Mr. Alfred Austin by Lord Salisbury unloosed a flood of ridicule. In the cartoon "Alfred the Little" _Punch_ depicted a diminutive figure, standing on tip-toe, as he hangs his lyre on the walls of the Temple of the Muses. The laurelled bust of Tennyson is shown in the interior, while outside the figures of Sir Edwin Arnold and Sir Lewis Morris are seen dissembling their disappointment. A few weeks later the inclusion of the new Laureate amongst the celebrities of Madame Tussaud's Exhibition prompted the malicious soliloquy of "Alfred amongst the Immortals."

[Sidenote: _Swinburne and the British Academy_]

Mr. Austin's unfortunate efforts at the time of the Boer war did not escape _Punch's_ derision, and when his name failed to appear in the New Year's Honour List of 1901, _Punch_, in a sardonic parody, modelled on the famous lyric in _Atalanta in Calydon_, represented Swinburne ironically asking:--

Austin--what of the Knight,
Heavy with hope deferred?
When will he solace our sight,
Panoplied, plumed and spurred?

Swinburne and Meredith, two other "eminent Victorians," both died in 1909. Towards them _Punch's_ attitude had undergone considerable vicissitudes. Swinburne's erotic ballads had, as I have noticed in an earlier volume, excited _Punch's_ vehement disapproval. Yet he paid him the tribute of constant imitation and parody. When the proposal for establishing a British Academy was brought forward in 1897, _Punch_, who "crabbed" the scheme from the outset, was not content with printing imaginary letters from various aspirants--Hall Caine, Miss Marie Corelli, Grant Allen, William Watson, "Sarah Grand," and Clement Scott--but made good play with Swinburne's publicly avowed disgust at having his name associated with a "_colluvies litterarum_" and a "ridiculous monster." The exclusion of pure or creative literature from the British Academy, it may be added, prompted Sambourne's cartoon in 1902 in which a sour-visaged lady in academical costume is seen mounting the steps to the Academy, while three graceful figures--Drama, Romance, and Poetry--are locked out on the other side of the railings.

To return to Swinburne, it should be noted that probably more poems were written in the "Dolores" stanza throughout this period than in any other metre. And when he died in 1909, _Punch_, granting him full amnesty for his violence in controversy, his extravagance and lawlessness of spirit, forgot the rebel and only remembered the singer:--

What of the night? For now his day is done,
And he, the herald of the red sunrise,
Leaves us in shadow even as when the sun
Sinks from the sombre skies.

High peer of Shelley, with the chosen few
He shared the secrets of Apollo's lyre,
Nor less from Dionysian altars drew
The god's authentic fire.

Last of our land's great singers, dowered at birth
With music's passion, swift and sweet and strong,
Who taught in heavenly numbers, new to earth,
The wizardry of song--

His spirit, fashioned after Freedom's mould,
Impatient of the bonds that mortals bear,
Achieves a franchise large and uncontrolled,
Rapt through the void of air.

"What of the night?" For him no night can be;
The night is ours, left songless and forlorn;
Yet o'er the darkness, where he wanders free,
Behold, a star is born!

George Meredith was an old friend of _Punch's_ from the days when he contributed to _Once a Week_, but he was not exempt from criticism on that account, as I have already shown. In 1894 he was again burlesqued in a parody of _Lord Ormont and his Aminta_, which ran through three numbers and was decorated with a portrait of the author as a bull in the china shop of syntax, grammar and form. _Punch_ in middle age only dimly appreciated Meredith's genius, and was disconcerted by his obscurity. _Punch_ erred in good company, for Tennyson is reported to have said that "reading Meredith is like wading through glue"; but sixteen years later the mists cleared away, and the verses of May, 1909, reveal insight as well as admiration:--

Masked in the beauty of the May-dawn's birth,
Death came and kissed the brow still nobly fair,
And hushed that heart of youth for which the earth
Still kept its morning air.

Long time initiate in her lovely lore,
Now is he one with Nature's woods and streams,
Whereof, a Paradisal robe, he wore
The visionary gleams.

* * * * *

When from his lips immortal music broke,
It was the myriad voice of vale and hill;
"The lark ascending" poured a song that woke
An echo sweeter still.

Yet most we mourn his loss as one who gave
The gift of laughter and the boon of tears,
Interpreter of life, its gay and grave,
Its human hopes and fears.

Seer of the soul of things, inspired to know
Man's heart and woman's, over all he threw
The spell of fancy's iridescent glow,
The sheen of sunlit dew.

And of the fellowship of that great Age
For whose return our eyes have waited long,
None left so rich a twofold heritage
Of high romance and song.

[Sidenote: "_Eminent Victorians_"]

Nor did _Punch_ allow the minor Victorian poets and authors to pass without homage, witness his tributes to Coventry Patmore, the "poet of Home and High Faith," and Jean Ingelow, whose _High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire_ is one of the finest of modern ballads, besides touching the high-water mark of her achievement. Professor Henry Morley, who died in 1894, elicited the well-earned tribute, "He made good letters cheap"; while the heroic industry and distinguished talent of Mrs. Oliphant--for _The Beleaguered City_ comes very near to greatness--are fittingly acknowledged in _Punch's "Vale!"_ in 1897. Sir Theodore Martin, as the joint author of the immortal _Bon Gaultier Ballads_, had a special claim to grateful remembrance from one who, like him, had known Astley's Circus in the palmy days of Widdecomb and Gomersal:--

Comrade of our "roaring 'forties," in your pages still
From the midmost fount of laughter may we drink our fill;
Watch you, Rabelais' disciple, sunshine in your eyes,
Shooting with an aim unerring folly as it flies.

_Punch's_ loyalty to Thomas Hood was testified in a long and perfectly serious study, in three instalments, of Hood as a poet and satirist, which appeared in 1896. In 1899 he was moved to sing the praises of Marryat in the manner of Gilbert's _Captain Reece_; in 1900 he reiterated his fealty to Walter Scott in verse as unimpeachable in sentiment as it was undistinguished in execution. I think one may safely say that nothing so inadequate to the occasion has since appeared in the pages of _Punch_. But even when the literary quality of _Punch_ was at its lowest he was capable of welcome surprises, as for example in the really charming verses, in 1893, on Izaak Walton's Tercentenary--verses based on intimate and affectionate study of _The Compleat Angler_.

Another Tercentenary, that of Milton in 1908, prompted the cartoon in which Shakespeare congratulates his brother poet because every three hundred years they gave _him_ a banquet at the Mansion House, while they only talked about a National Theatre for himself. A Chicago professor had seized the occasion to observe that Milton, if alive then, would be in favour of every advanced movement except Woman's Suffrage, and _Punch_ turned the saying to good account in a mock-heroic sonnet after Wordsworth. One might well have thought that Charles Lamb's reputation was securely established by 1913, yet in that year a member of the London Education Committee suggested that the _Essays of Elia_ was hardly the kind of book to be put in the hands of young women students. _Punch_ dealt judicially with the offender in two letters--one from a prudish parent; the other from a humanist and lover of Lamb who sends a copy of the incriminated volume to his daughter, together with a report of the protest, and some comments on the survival of Podsnap:--

He lives, he lives though sorely spent;
We shrug our shoulders, and lament
The tyranny not overpast
Of Philistine and agelast.

HOMER: "Look here, what _does_ it matter which of you chaps wrote the other fellow's books? Goodness only knows _how_ many wrote mine!"

(_Nods, as usual, and exit._)
]

[Sidenote: _Shakespeare and Shaw_]

The last word has an academic ring, but _Punch_ was probably thinking of George Meredith's use of it in a letter to _The Times_ in 1877 when he spoke of those "whom Rabelais would have called agelasts or non-laughers."

A brilliant American essayist, Miss Agnes Repplier, has recently remarked that the Twentieth Century does not "lean to extravagant partialities" but rather to "disparagement, to searchlights, to that lavish candour which no man's reputation can sustain." In the pastime of hauling eminence down from its pinnacle she awards a pre-eminence to British critics. It cannot be said that _Punch_ has taken an active hand in this game. Even Shakespeare had not been exempt from this "lavish candour." Mr. Bernard Shaw, writing in the _Saturday Review_ in 1896, had said that "with the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare, when I measure my mind against his." Whether he really meant what he said is a question passing the wit of the plain person; but the utterance stung _Punch_ into a rejoinder in the form of an imaginary interview with "G. B. S.," in which the criticism is further developed and obliquely ridiculed. _Punch_ was equally sensitive where patronage of the bard suggested self-advertisement, and in 1901, in the "New Genius of Stratford-on-Avon," he expressed an ironical apprehension lest Miss Corelli might oust Shakespeare as the tutelary deity of that town. The Bacon-Shakespeare controversy was again becoming acute and claimed _Punch's_ attention in 1902, when he published a cartoon bearing on the issue, and followed it up with a happy burlesque. As he argued, "If Bacon wrote Shakespeare's Plays, why, in the name of all that is biliteral, should not Shakespeare have written Bacon's Essays?" Hence the dissertation "Of Plays and their Authors," from which I may quote the concluding passages:--