Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 2 of 4.—1857-1874

Honest Fault-finding

The strike against the butchers was one in which the working classes might safely combine to turn out. "They will not injure themselves, nor hurt their wives and families: on the contrary, all the while the strike lasts they will be putting by money. The public will support instead of discouraging them." But it is impossible to take the commendation seriously in view of the last sentence; "whilst others, I trust, are endeavouring, by total abstinence from butchers' meat, to reduce the butchers to reason, I remain medicinally, of course, always 'A Beefeater.'" Much more effective, because untainted by irony, are the plain-spoken verses on the British workman as painted by his flatterers, his detractors and his candid friends: —

While Democrat orators praise him and puff himAs the land's bone and sinew, and Nature's own nob:Aristocrat talkers calumniously cuff him,As shiftless, and soulless, sot, spendthrift, and snob.'Twixt the daub of his bully, the daub of his backer,The true British Workman's been able to stand,And at once to disclaim both the brighter and blacker,As alike wide of truth, from the right and left hand.

The success of "Tom Brown" (Tom Hughes), who was elected for Lambeth in 1865, encouraged the enthusiastic friends of the British workman in the hope that he would now be painted without fear or favour, but Tom Brown's honest unvarnished portraiture was more than his sitter could stand: —

While a fact is a fact 'twill do no good to blink it,Put up with the shadows Tom Brown dares to show,Your face may be darker than you like to think it,If the shadows ain't fast, wash, and let's see them go.While your Union pickets still waylay and "ratten"The knob-sticks, who work on their own honest hook,While on your hard earnings strike-delegates batten,And machines and machine-work are in your black book;While men who earn more by the week than their curateAre content in one room of a hovel to pig;While shop-drinks and Saint Monday their old rate endure at,And the wife and the young 'uns come after the swig;While limb's rest and soul's light to your infants begrudging,You drive them to workshop, to mine, loom or wheel,To drag through long years of unnatural drudgingAs though minds could die out, and yet bodies not feel;While such are the shadows your features that darken,Needs must that the blacks in your picture appear;And they're no friends who bid you your own praises hearken,When an honest fault-finder is craving your ear!

Later on, however, Tom Brown was himself taken to task for flattering the working man.

On the question of housing and sanitation Punch refused to believe that landlords were altogether to blame. Social reformers and legislators found themselves up against stubborn facts, and none were more stubborn than the Briton's prejudices in favour of vested rights and a man's house being his own castle, wherein he is free to do what he likes with his own: —

These stubborn facts are, no doubt, at the bottom of much that is worthy of respect in John Bull's character. They have not a little to do with his Magna Charta and his Habeas Corpus. But they occasionally stop the way all the same; obstruct the efforts of the Local Board or Nuisance Removal Committee, crouch like lions in the path of the Officer of Health, trip up the heels of the Inspector of Nuisances, and crop out in back slums, by-lanes, and blind alleys for district visitors and zealous clergymen to break their shins over.

Village Sanitation in 1865

These remarks form the preface to a series of extracts from the verbatim report of a Visiting Committee appointed in 1865 to inspect a little seaside village. The name of the place is withheld, but Punch pledges his word for the absolute veracity of the reporter, adding that what the Committee found in the way of stinks, putrid wells, foul accumulations, and purblind or pig-headed people was to be found in nineteen out of every twenty English villages, seaside or inland, rural or suburban. The houses in a sample street were occupied by an old gardener, a small pork butcher, three pilots, three sailors' wives, and two coast-guardsmen. The description of the well in the pork butcher's house is enough, in Dickens's phrase, to sicken a scavenger. But the complacent fatalism which marked all these householders rises to a pitch of sublimity in the immortal phrase of the first coast-guardsman: -

"Had the cholera in '44: ain't afeared of it. Considers as it's a natural went for the overplush of mankind. When his time comes, knows as he 'as got to go. Considers as his time wasn't come in '44. Always keeps his house very clean: does all the scrubbing himself, and paints his bedsteads and chests of drawers with red lead and turps twice a year."

According to the local doctor, all the inhabitants of these houses were drinking water strongly impregnated with lead, but "they appear to like it so I can't help it, especially as the landlord refuses to alter the pumps." The first pilot considered that he had a right to drink his own sewage if he liked it. The second coast-guardsman "couldn't abear chloride of lime," and, in general, disinfectants were dreaded more than bad drains. An optimistic speaker on Social Science in October, 1859, had declared that the advance of education was certainly very marked. "Classes once illiterate now show a love of literature, the taste for which has even reached our cabmen, who in demeanour and civility are not the men they were." Punch was sceptical about the cabman and printed an ironical poem on his progress modelled on "She wore a wreath of roses." The passages we have quoted show that six years later pork butchers, pilots and coast-guardsmen left a good deal to be desired in their knowledge of practical hygiene. But Punch does not acquit the landlords or Government officials, and, though no lover of despotism abroad or at home, there were moments when he felt that a little more "paternal government" would not be a bad thing. As he put it a little later: "when Mr. Punch is reminded of tanks, cisterns, bins and butts for miles along a tainted shore being overlooked by a mythical Inspector of Nuisances instead of being looked into, in his utter bewilderment he is tempted to exclaim, Wanted a Bismarck."

With the death of Palmerston the question of organic reform re-emerged, but the Russell administration, hampered by the disaffected Adullamite Liberals – brilliantly led by Lowe – and restrained by Whig caution, handled their Bill in a half-hearted spirit which courted defeat. Russell resigned at the end of June, 1866, and was succeeded by Lord Derby with Disraeli again as Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is on record that Gladstone, shortly after Palmerston's death, agreed with Denison, the Speaker, that there was no strong feeling for reform in the country. Yet within a few months the diagnosis was completely falsified. Immediately after the fall of the Russell administration came the historic Hyde Park riots and a vigorous agitation throughout the country. "The artisans, who had seemed apathetic towards the franchise when it was dangled before them, became angry when it was refused." Punch's account of the rioting and its sequel is liberal of censure, but cannot be regarded as either impartial or judicial or as appreciative of the significance of the episode: —

Monday, July 23.– It did not seem to suit the Fates that our friends the Conservatives should slide into the recess quite so quietly as had been anticipated. Sir George Grey, the late Home Secretary, had ordained that the proposed Reform Demonstration should not be allowed to take place in Hyde Park, but his Ministry went out in time to save him any further trouble in the matter. Mr. Walpole had to vindicate the law, and his gentle soul has been a good deal perturbed by events. One Beales insisted on holding the meeting, and Sir Richard Mayne locked the Park Gates. The result was inevitable. The artisan class attended in large numbers, and of course behaved perfectly well; but, equally of course, the processions were supplemented by a vast mass of Roughs, who behaved perfectly ill. Mr. Punch is unable to compliment the Reform League, inasmuch as its acts tended to violate order, and its "experiment of right" could have been tried with a hundred men instead of with thousands. Nor can we compliment the authorities who endeavoured to defend an untenable post, inasmuch as law could have been asserted by the arrest of a few individuals. He does not make a great noise about the breaking down of some railings, and the destruction by some roughs of trees and shrubs, nor would he put London in a state of siege because a good many windows have been broken, but all this sort of thing is really the fault of one Beales, who knew that a mob would follow the working man. Rough and Bludgeon came largely into contact, to the discomfort of the former, and the Beaks looked to the rest, Mr. Knox having especially distinguished himself by firmness and moderation, coming down sternly on ruffians and being lenient to mere fools.

But Mr. Walpole had to defend himself in the House, and also had to see a Reform deputation, before whom he wept, and some of whom managed to misunderstand him, or pretended to do so, whereby there was another meeting summoned, as if with Government sanction, but after explanations, in and out of the House, the idea was given up. So ended the campaign, and Mr. Punch is almost ashamed of the fuss which has been made over an affair of broken heads, while two great nations are mourning over slaughtered myriads.

Working Man: "Look here, you vagabond! Right or wrong, we won't have your help."

"One Beales"

"One Beales," as Punch contemptuously describes him, was a political agitator, but of a very different type from the "delegate" as depicted in a previous page. He was an Etonian, a scholar of his college at Cambridge, a barrister of the Middle Temple, and a revising barrister for Middlesex, who died in the odour of legal sanctity as a County Court Judge. But as a member of the Emancipation Society in the Civil War, a member of Mill's Jamaica Committee in connexion with the case of General Eyre, and above all as President of the Reform League, and advocate of Manhood Suffrage and the right of public meeting, he had incurred Punch's unremitting hostility. "Beales and his Bubbly-jocks" were constantly held up to ridicule. But they were very far from being ridiculous. The League served as a spear-head for the discontent aroused by the failure of Russell's Reform Bill, which it had cordially supported. The meeting in Trafalgar Square on July 2, 1866, had been prohibited, but Sir Richard Mayne, the first Commissioner of Police, withdrew the prohibition, and the meeting, attended by nearly 70,000 persons, passed off quietly. Beales is declared to have shown great courage and coolness on July 23. The meeting assembled near the gates of Hyde Park; the invasion of the Park and the pulling down of the railings occurred as the crowd were returning to Trafalgar Square, but the leaders were in no way responsible. The police were roughly handled and had to be reinforced by the Guards before the crowd was driven out; but an amicable arrangement was reached between Beales and Walpole next day as to the discontinuance of any further meetings except by arrangement with the government. The Reform League had done its work; its mission was virtually ended when Disraeli's Reform Bill passed in 1867 and it was formally dissolved in March, 1869, three days after Beales had resigned the presidency. No amount of belittling of Beales can disguise the fact that he and his League gave a great impetus to the Reform movement – the Lord Mayor of London actually presided over one of its meetings in the sacred precincts of the Guildhall – and forced on the introduction of the Bill of 1867. During its progress through Parliament another great meeting convened by the Reform League was held in Hyde Park in May, 1867. The Home Secretary issued a notice warning all persons against attending it, but was practically over-ruled by the Prime Minister, who announced that nothing would be done to hinder it. The meeting, attended by 200,000 people, passed off without any disturbance or untoward incident, and Walpole soon afterwards retired. As Walpole, in consequence of his Hyde Park associations, had become one of Punch's regular butts, it is only fair to his memory to say that the story of his having broken down and wept before a deputation is denied by the D.N.B. Punch's review of the episode quoted above is thoroughly typical of his temper in this period of transition; of his independence, his readiness to acknowledge the moderation and sanity of British working men, his anxiety to distinguish between them and the hooligan fringe; and at the same time of his distrust of their leaders and of any organization which in his view savoured of extremism. There were "bubbly-jocks" in Beales's following, but he was no bubbly-jock, as Wilkes was no Wilkesite, and in many ways though by different means was working towards the same end as Punch himself. Beales had no gifts as a mob-orator. His real strength lay in his knowledge of the law; and it was on the legal ground that he worsted Lord Derby and Walpole. There are some who think that modern democracy was born on July 23, 1866. Be that as it may, the Hyde Park riot was a great landmark in our political history.

The Future of Coal

It is pleasant to turn from Punch's not very happy handling of the Hyde Park incident to his wiser, if fanciful comment on the warnings of the philosophical alarmists who predicted the speedy exhaustion of our coal supplies, and asked What, then, would Posterity do for force and for fuel? Punch suggests another conceivable fear to balance that of the coal pessimists. If our population continued to increase at the same rate, not only would the bowels of the land be consumed, but its entire face be covered up with towns and factories. For his part he feared neither the one nor the other event: —

If the coal ever runs out, something equivalent to it will doubtless turn up, or else turn down. Somebody will discover a cheap way to set the Thames on fire, or to draw below, and store, atmospheric electricity. By a system of vertical elevation instead of lateral extension, our architecture will be adapted to our area, and our cities, no longer expanding, will continue to ascend. The higher they rise the less will Posterity be troubled with any amount of smoke which it may be unable to consume. The future of England will then be as fresh as a daisy, still as familiar a flower as ever.

The growth of industrialism was not to be dreaded if it was humanely and wisely controlled and directed. That is the moral which Punch draws from the opening of the new docks at Barrow-in-Furness in September, 1867. The occasion was indeed "worth a crowd and a crow": —

A Barrow that has grown, one may say, from a barrow into a coach-and-four in ten years! A Barrow that has swelled almost within the memory of the youngest inhabitant from the quiet coast-nest of some five score fishermen into the busy, bustling, blazing, money-making, money-spending, roaring, tearing, swearing, steaming, sweltering seat of twenty thousand iron workers, and the crime and culture, the dirt and disease, the hard-working and hard-drinking, the death and life, the money and misery they bring along with them!! A Barrow out of which they are tipping 600,000 tons of iron every year!!! A Barrow big enough to hold a Monster-Iron-Mining-and-Smelting Company, with two Dukes among its directors, to say nothing of Lord knows who, in the way of Lords, and Lord knows how many millionaires!!!!

The two Dukes – one of them, Devonshire, a Second Wrangler into the bargain – were both present, and also the first of living orators, Mr. Gladstone. But the person who interested Mr. Punch most was the master-spirit of the great iron company, "one Schneider," and he is not slow to improve the occasion: —

He has hitherto been known to fame among public men chiefly as an ex-M.P., turned out of his seat at Lancaster for gross and shameless bribery. He has seen so much done by energy and money that he probably thought the one as legitimate a lever into Parliament as the other. But he has been punished for his mistake. He has now an opportunity to repair it. His name is the same as that of the President of the French Legislative Assembly, the energetic, far-sighted M. Schneider, whom Mr. Punch has already honoured as the head and heart of the admirably-conducted firm which has made the iron manufacturing district of Le Creusot, a model as yet to be imitated among the great English industries of the same kind…

And now for Mr. Punch's proposition. Suppose M. Schneider were to set himself in real earnest to wipe out the recollection of Lancaster by the redemption of Barrow? What if he were to prove himself the ditto of M. Schneider of Le Creusot, not in name only but in deed, and to make Barrow-in-Furness the Creusot of England, in morals, manners, civilization, education, domestic comfort and culture, as well as in industry, energy and money-making? Here is a work worthy of the noblest ambition, the most determined energy, the highest intelligence, and certain of the richest reward – a reward not to be gauged by dividends, it is true, but beyond the measure of millions. Let there be two Schneiders known in the world for their noble conception and perfect discharge of the duties of a great captain of industry, and let one of them be an Englishman.

Reform Bill of 1867

Henry William Schneider, who started the Barrow Steel Works and was for many years one of the directors, died in 1887. His namesakes of Le Creusot still continue their dynasty. Early in 1870, the year of the Franco-Prussian war, Punch

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1

No mention is made in the otherwise full and sympathetic notice of James Montgomery in the D.N.B. of this, not the least honourable of the services of that Sheffield worthy. Though his verse, especially in the epic vein, was unequal, the D.N.B., differing from Lord Jeffrey who slated it in the Edinburgh, agrees with Punch in according James Montgomery the title of poet, reserving that of "Poetaster" to Robert or "Satan" Montgomery, who also dealt in epics, and was the victim of Macaulay's famous and ferocious castigation in the Quarterly.

2

"A painful death by burning has happened at Torquay. Louisa Row, aged ten, lost her mother a few weeks ago, and undertook the cooking for her father, a labourer, and the rest of the family. She had well performed the duties devolving upon her since her mother's death, until one day she went too near the grate, her frock was ignited, and she was terribly burned. The poor child lived several days after the accident. At the inquest a verdict of 'Accidental death' was returned."

3

The variations of view in Punch's estimate of John Bright form an interesting study. In the main, while admiring his courage, Punch found him too fond of asserting an impracticable independence. The masses distrusted him as a cottonocrat; the middle-classes as an out-and-out democrat and therefore an advocate of mob-rule. Punch himself had described Bright as an inciter to class-hatred in 1860.