Part 8

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: _The Children's Champion_]

[Illustration: ART IN WHITECHAPEL

"Well, that's what I calls a himpossible persition to get yerself into!"]

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

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

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

[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF WINDSOR CASTLE

by the Boy Scouts.]

[Sidenote: _The Boy Scout Movement_]

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

[Illustration: OUR DEAR OLD FRIEND THE FOREIGN SPY]

[Sidenote: _Strikes and Unemployment_]

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

THE STRIKER'S VADE MECUM

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

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

_Q._ Is there ever any other remedy?

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

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

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

_Q._ But have not the employers any interests?

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

_Q._ But are not their interests yours?

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

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

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

_Q._ But are not arguments better than bludgeons?

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

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

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

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

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

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

_A._ On strike money.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_A._ Yes, bludgeons or beer.

_Q._ And what is the value of reason?

_A._ Why, something less than smoke.

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

[Illustration: THE UNEMPLOYABLE

(Dedicated to Lord R-s-b-ry)]

[Sidenote: _Gambling and Improvidence_]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Sidenote: _Town v. Country_]

[Illustration: JOE THE VENTRILOQUIST

PROFESSOR CH-MB-RL-N: "You see, ladies and gentlemen, he talks just as well even when I go right away!"]

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

[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE GOLDEN AGE

(Vide The Lloyd-Georgics--passim)]

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

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

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