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

Other speakers dwell on the lamentable ignorance of plumbing, mechanics and anatomy (from the point of view of the butcher). Punch might have quoted the authentic story of a very clever lady in this period who imagined that a hydraulic ram was an animal.

Another ground for legitimate complaint on which Punch frequently insisted was the attempt to introduce dogma into the sphere of domestic service, as, for example, when a "Christian gentleman" advertised for a lady housekeeper of "decided piety" to keep his house, without any salary, in return for a comfortable home. Punch did not believe in religiosity of this character any more than he could stand the snobbery which relegated servants to the gallery or the inferior seats in church. When a Bill was introduced in the summer of 1871 for abolishing the pew system, he quoted the following speeches from the debate on the second reading: —

Mr. Beresford Hope told this story:

"He remembered having many years ago to seek a church where his household could worship. He went to the individual who let the pews in a chapel of ease near his residence, and he said he wished to take a pew. The man produced a plan, and he selected the one nearest the pulpit and the reading-desk. But, unluckily, he dropped the observation that the pew was for his servants, whereupon the man said, 'You don't mean that you are taking the pew for your livery servants.' On his saying, 'Yes, I am,' he received the reply, 'Then I cannot let it you, for if livery servants were to come to the pew, all the ladies and gentlemen in the neighbouring pews would cease to attend.'" (Hear, hear, and laughter.)

Mr. Henley "did not believe that the humbler classes themselves desired to see the parish churches managed in such a way as to allow the costermonger a seat beside that of a duchess. It reminded him of the couplet which says that:

'Something the Devil delights to seeIs the pride that apes humility.'"

Grateful Recipient: "Bless you, my lady! May we meet in Heaven!"

Haughty Donor: "Good gracious!! Drive on, Jarvis!!!"

(She had evidently read Dr. Johnson, who "didn't want to meet certain people anywhere.")

Religious Snobbery

What Punch thought of this fashionable Christianity may be learned from his truly admirable comments on the protest of a lady's maid in a provincial paper: —

Here is a letter which might very well have passed muster in the (original) Spectator. It is, however, addressed to the Editor of the Hampshire Independent, in which journal it appeared the other day under the title, "Is the Church Free?" The Church therein particularly referred to is the old parish church of Millbrook, near Southampton: —

"Sir, – I saw lately in your paper a very pleasing paragraph, asking for free and open sittings in Parish Churches. Now, as the Bishop is coming amongst us, will you kindly insert this letter, that he may know how proper it would be at Millbrook, where the rich people, who are objecting to a new church nearer to the poor, won't let a servant of any station sit in the body of the church, and we are sent upstairs, if the masters or mistresses are agreeable or not.

We don't blame Mr. Blunt, and we hope the Bishop will ask him about it, and order free pews in the new church. – I am, Sir, etc.,

"August 17, 1871.

A Lady's Maid."

Well said, Mary. Your rich people at Millbrook, some of them, apparently need to be told that at Service in Church everyone is a Servant, and all Servants are equal. Perhaps, however, those rich exclusives attend Church for the same kind of reason as that which makes them go to County Balls, if they can, or would make them if they could. If their church-going is merely an airing of their respectability, it is needless to remind them that a Church is a place where the Presence they are supposed to enter is no respecter of persons. The Bishop of Winchester will doubtless, if possible, not disappoint Mary's hope that he will order free pews, or seats, to be provided in the new Church at Millbrook. In old Millbrook Church, by Mary's account, existing accommodation would be improved on principle by another arrangement. The sittings could be divided into First, Second, and Third-Class Pews.

Class patronage was always obnoxious to Punch, but he was quite ready to admit that the difficulty of getting good servants arose from the impossibility, in most cases, of the lady of the house adapting herself to the peculiar disposition of each one of her domestics. The accompanying advertisement – a remarkably modern achievement for 1865 – sounded the note of independence too boldly to suit so moderate a reformer: —

"Domestic Servant. – A Person about Twenty, with excellent character, wishes a Situation where not restricted in becoming dress nor services rendered unnecessarily menial. She would prefer a small Country Family Situation, away from the noise and hurry of Birmingham. Should her mistress prove quiet and amiable, a suitable, respectable, permanent servant would inevitably be secured. Lowest wages accepted, ten guineas."

The Young Lady's grammar, in "wishing a situation," is somewhat arbitrary, but it is enough for her purpose that the reader should know what she means. The restriction in becoming dress probably alludes to the tyranny of a mistress who objected to her china ornaments being knocked down by Betty and housemaid's extensive crinoline. "Services rendered unnecessarily menial" conveys the idea of the wearer of a crinoline being obliged to clean the doorsteps, the attitude necessitated by the nature of this operation being one of supplication so humble, and prostration so abject, as would never be adopted by any wearer of the steel hoops who "could see herself as others see her." The Young Lady would perhaps like to take her quiet tea and beauty sleep in the drawing-room, about four o'clock of an afternoon, talk over family matters with her quiet and amiable mistress, or skim her a few pages of the Court Circular. We sincerely trust that the advertiser has obtained the situation she deserves.

"Mamma, don't you think Pug ought to be vaccinated?"

"What nonsense, dear! They only vaccinate human beings!"

"Why, Lady Fakeaway's had all her servants vaccinated, Mamma!"

Fashions in Christian Names

It was in the same spirit that a few years earlier a protest had been raised against the fashion of decorative names amongst the poorer classes: —

Our laundress's infants have no great charms,Yet they have a Eugénie in arms;While Victor Albert swings on a gate,And munches his bacon in village state.'Twould be hard to say there is any blame,There is no monopoly in a name;But it strikes one sometimes as rather absurdThat contrast between the child and the word.And what will it be when years have flownAnd these finely-named damsels are women grown?When Evelyn Ada must polish the gratesWhile Edith Amelia is washing the plates.

Nurse: "And to-day was little Cissy's birthday; and Sir John, he gave her a coral necklace; and Milady, she gave her a boo'ful blue frock; and as for Mr. James, he took more notice of her nor anybody did, and gave her a sweet kiss! Heigho! Who wouldn't be little Cissy?"

N.B. Sir John is Cissy's godpapa, and Milady her godmamma, and as for Mr. James, why —

This is Mr. James!

It has been reserved for a later generation to witness the appropriation of the homely names Joan, Betty, Susan, etc., by the social élite, while Gladys, Doris, and so forth, have become common form amongst the daughters of Labour.

The Victorian Governess

The month of April, 1872, was marked by two notable meetings of domestic servants, one at Dundee and one at Leamington, at both of which the forming of a trade union was unanimously decided on. At Dundee dux femina facti; and Punch celebrated the event in a set of verses in which the revolt of the "Leamington Flunkeys" is attributed to the alluring example of the housemaids of "Bonny Dundee." The curious will find in the Annual Register for 1872 an account of the Dundee meeting. It had a disastrous sequel in the breakdown of one of the maids who had taken a prominent part in the agitation. Punch comments unchivalrously on the fuss which was made in the local Press over "the hysterics of an ex-servant maid." Modern readers will marvel at the moderation of most of the demands in regard to hours, privileges, etc., put forward at Dundee; but the fact that butlers and footmen had followed suit destroyed any sympathy that Punch might have felt for the movement. The flunkey, as depicted by Du Maurier, is more elegant and refined-looking than the Jeames of Leech, but he continues to be treated with the same implacable ridicule. "Servant-galism" is another matter, and it stands more and more for a claim to consideration which Punch, in his more serious moments, cannot wholly withstand. As against pictures of the "what next, indeed!" type, in which excessive demands are treated with a mild resentment, we have to set Punch's championship of the right to be decently housed, and his reproof of an advertiser who asked for a servant who could neither read nor write.

The gibbeting of employers who offered governesses starvation wages continues, but the entries are far less numerous than in the 'fifties. Still, the evil was not wholly removed. In 1867 Punch expressed surprise that among the many strikes lately witnessed there had not been one of governesses. As a rule, he observes, they are extremely overworked and underpaid, and have really far more cause for striking than the tailors: —

Still, there seems but little prospect of our seeing them on strike while we find them putting forward such advertisements as this: —

"A Single Lady, aged 36, with a limited income, offers £20 per annum and two hours' daily instruction to one or two Children in English and the rudiments of music and French, in return for her Board."

We have often known a Governess content with a small salary, but it is a novelty to hear of one content with less than nothing, and even offering to pay a yearly premium for her place. An income which is limited may fail to satisfy the cravings of an appetite which is not; still, unless this single lady be uncommonly voracious, she need scarcely, one would fancy, offer £20 a year, and two hours' teaching daily merely for her board.

The treatment of governesses was one of the blots on the Victorian age. They lived in what might be called No Woman's Land. Their status was semi-menial; their salaries were often much lower than those of cooks; they seldom emerged from the schoolroom; they had little encouragement to be efficient; if they were young and pretty they were frowned upon as potential adventuresses; if they were elderly and ill-favoured they were negligible and neglected. The very term "governess" carried with it a certain hint of social disparagement; and they were for the most part the easy victims of snobbery. If proof be required one has only to turn to the novels of the period, in which very few examples will be found of governesses who succeeded in overleaping the barriers of caste and entering the realms of romance. Charlotte Brontë, the pioneer of the "emancipation novel," was perhaps the first to give the governess a chance in fiction. In fact there was not much improvement in the "governess-trade" on the condition described in Jane Austen's Emma half a century earlier, when Jane Fairfax compared it to the slave-trade, "widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where the difference lies." But then we must remember that class distinctions were then much more clearly drawn than they are to-day. It was not until 1870 that the gold tuft on the cap worn by noblemen at Oxford was discontinued. The dearth of army doctors, on which Punch frequently comments in 1864, was due in his opinion to the snobbery of a system which relegated the members of a noble profession to an inferior social status. It was in the same year, to his lasting credit, that Punch espoused the cause of old ballet-girls, with a view to relieving the necessities of worn-out columbines, fairies and sylphs. He was doubtful of the result of his appeal simply because of the self-protective prudery of polite society: —

I know that most rich people have far too much morality to think of doing anything for such people as poor ballet-girls, who are supposed to be descended from some of the Lost Tribes. Of course Polite Society can never be expected to take anything like an interest in persons of this sort. Still, although Polite Society may not feel disposed to help to keep poor ballet-girls alive, I think Polite Society would not be altogether pleased were ballet-girls extinct.

Society and the Stage

The correspondence and controversy which grew out of Punch's intervention is too long to be treated in detail. His statements were canvassed, and the existence of theatrical funds adequate to meet the needs of the situation was pointed out. But Punch was not far out when he declared that as ballet-girls grew old their salaries decreased; it was only by hard work that they earned their living in the playhouse, and they barely escaped dying in a workhouse. The episode is creditable to the humanity of Punch. It is also interesting to the student of manners from the light which it throws on the conventional attitude of polite society towards the theatrical profession in mid-Victorian days. It was a survival of the old view expressed by the Prussian sovereign in an order referring to "singers, actors, and other rubbish." In their proper place – on the stage – they were amusing people. Socially they were outside the pale, living in a state of semi-outlawry, and to be given a wide berth by all self-respecting citizens. Punch, from the intimate connexion of so many of his staff with the drama – Douglas Jerrold, Tom Taylor and Burnand cover nearly the whole period of our survey – never subscribed to this view, though he deprecated mummer-worship as fostering the vanity which was the besetting sin of the actor's calling. He fully recognized the generosity and charity which successful players showed to their less fortunate brothers and sisters. But in the days of which we are now writing Punch did not foresee the swing of the pendulum which resulted in the invasion of the stage by amateurs and the conversion of what had been a social stigma into a social asset.

WOMEN

"Feminism," in the modern sense, as was pointed out in the previous volume, is in English, at any rate, a twentieth century word. Yet the movement was there long before the name was coined or imported, and in the period on which we now enter a notable change reveals itself in the spirit of Punch's dream of womanhood. The change is all the more remarkable when we recall the fact that the paper was still written exclusively by men and appealed mainly to male readers. The first woman contributor with the pen – Miss Betham Edwards – did not appear until 1868. "Mrs. Punch's Letters to her Daughter," however, cannot be said to strike a new note, being for the most part a replica of Punch's own views, with a mild undercurrent of irony so carefully disguised as to be almost invisible. Mrs. Punch disavows all association with committees or causes. She was "not even a novelist" – apparently a hit at Rhoda Broughton, who had recently swum into the ken of the astonished Mrs. Grundy, and whose works are obliquely disparaged under the transparent aliases of "Unwisely but not too well," and "Cometh up as a Nettle." Mrs. Lynn Linton's tirades against the Girl of the Period had appeared in the Saturday Review earlier in the year, and Mrs. Punch follows mildly in the same path, rebuking the extravagances of fashion; monstrous chignons, false and dyed hair, the use of Madame Rachel's cosmetics, and a resort to audacious décolletage. In her advice on the choice and management of husbands Mrs. Punch is purely ironic. There is no serious effort to dislodge men from their entrenched positions as lords of creation. The furthest she goes is in a retort on the Young Man of the Period, whom she boldly pronounces an ass, whether he is of the tame cat order; or an "æsthetic" with a genius for disparaging everybody, especially his elders; or a mere conceited ass; or a clerical despot to whom woman is a ministering slave. Finally she deplores the precocity of the Young Children of the Period. Indeed, there weren't any young children at all, only richly-dressed supercilious little men and women; worldly-wise little satirists and snobs.

Professor Pumper: "May I ask, Miss Blank, why you are making those little pellets?"

Miss B.: "Well, I don't know. It is a habit I have. I always make bread pills when I feel bored at dinner!"

A Change of Type

But from 1860 onwards one notes an increasing readiness to take women seriously. They are no longer merely regarded as "dear creatures," ornamental and domestic, as when the appearance of The Angel in the House inspired the comment that the title was one "which might be bestowed on a meritorious cook." Blue stockings are still the subject of much acidulated chaff, and "strong-minded" women are almost invariably represented as flat-chested, ill-dressed slatterns. But within certain limits women are allowed to cultivate intellect without loss of angelical charm. The type of feminine good looks portrayed by Leech remained unchanged to the end of his life. Yet in two directions we note a change. His charming buxom girls show a tendency to revolt against the tyranny of their pert schoolboy brothers;22 they are beginning to cultivate the faculty of retort even at the expense of learned professors. And again, in the hunting-field, the superior boldness of the hard-riding young lady is frequently glorified at the expense of the more cautious male. In this context it is worthy of record that for many years after Leech's death the bulk of the hunting pictures were contributed by the first of Punch's lady artists – Miss G. Bowers.

Miss Hypatia Jones, Spinster of Arts (on her way to refreshment), informs Professor Parallax, F.R.S., that "young men do very well to look at, or to dance with, or even to marry, and all that kind of thing!" but that "as to enjoying any rational conversation with any man under fifty, that is completely out of the question!"

Du Maurier's Women

Fainting was still fashionable, but women were beginning to compete, mildly but increasingly, in the domain of sport and pastime. Hunting had long been their great stand-by; it afforded women the greatest opportunities for the display of nerve, skill and endurance, and they were as conspicuous by these qualities in the 'sixties as they are to-day. But the Amazon is a class apart. Archery – by reason of its opportunities for showing off a graceful figure as the arrow was "pulled on the tense string" – was still in its golden prime, and croquet so widely popular as to warrant the publication of a long poem in several instalments. Yet the code of mid-Victorian croquet, to judge by contemporary evidence, was not of a high standard. The ladies were charged with habitual cheating. It was a standing dish at garden parties, but, in a phrase of the time, seemed more closely connected with 'usbandry than 'orticulture. Lawn tennis did not arrive till later, and then only as a species of "pat-ball." But women were becoming more active and athletic. We do not speak merely of the professional gymnasts and performers on the tight-rope and the trapeze who emulated the feats of Blondin and Léotard, occasionally with tragical results; but rather of the change in physique and stature of English women. For one can hardly believe that the Junonian types which Du Maurier was so fond of drawing were purely imaginary, or that the gentle giantess, married to the diminutive husband who figures in the domestic record of Mr. Tom Tit, had no prototype in fact. Leech familiarized us with the Amazon of the hunting-field, but Du Maurier introduced us to the statuesque goddesses of the drawing-room, tall and divinely fair. But the debt of English womankind to his pencil went much further than his consistent homage to their beauty and gracious demeanour. He was more concerned to illustrate the taste of their dress than the absurdities of fashion. And above all he never failed to credit them with wit and subtlety in conversation. In sheer buxom comeliness Leech's women were never surpassed, but in elegance and distinction of feature and bearing the types, or perhaps we should say the type, favoured by Du Maurier raised the "social cuts" in Punch to a higher level. It was part of the general movement of the paper from its "Left Centre" position in the direction of the Right, from its aggressive championship of democratic principles towards a Liberalism tempered by an increasing disposition to criticize the working classes. Yet if Punch paid more attention to, and showed more consideration for Mayfair than in his earlier years, the follies and extravagance and arrogant exclusiveness of fashionable women seldom failed to excite his wrath. As he had regarded the decline and fall of Almack's as inevitable, he betrayed no enthusiasm over its revival in 1858.23 The old oligarchical rule had its merits, in so far as it recognized that money alone was no passport to the revels of the aristocracy. But towards the end of the old régime the barriers had been partially broken down, as one may gather from the verses in which the re-opening of the Assembly Rooms was duly and unsympathetically recorded: —

Sing for joy, superior classes,But, of course, in tones subdued,Do not bellow like the masses,Bawl not as the multitude;But your joy should be outpoured,For behold Almack's restored!There shall Beauty, in exclusiveCircles, waltz again with Wealth,Sharing exercise, conduciveMore to pleasure than to health,Whilst the sun ascends the skies,And the common people rise.Oh! ye Flunkeys, holloa louder,Than the rest, for rampant mirth,In the pride of plush and powder,You'll attend on Rank and Birth.How transported you must wax,Thinking on revived Almack's!

Belgravian Manners and Maxims

The jaded belles who appeared in Hyde Park after dancing till 4 a.m. at Willis's rooms are treated with scant respect, and when Cremorne Gardens were reserved for the Aristocratic Fête organized by Lord Ingestre, a certain malicious satisfaction is expressed that the entertainment was spoilt by the rain. Punch admitted, in "The Cream at Cremorne," that some hundreds of pounds had been raised for charity, but he disapproved of the "exclusive" methods adopted.

The craze for toy-dogs was already rampant. Punch was always a lover of dogs and a good friend of animals, but he detested that form of feminine sentimentality which exalted caninity at the expense of humanity, and in 1858 turned one of Tennyson's lyrics to satiric use in the "Ballad of Poppetina": —

They came and told me where I lay,Poppetina,How that my pet had run away,Poppetina.With but a feather (as they say)You might have knocked me down that day,Poppetina;I almost fainted right away,Poppetina.

Amongst the "Belgravian maxims" published in the same year we note two which have not yet entirely lost their force: "We make our money in London, but we spend it in Paris. England gives us meat, and France sends us cooks." Nowadays we still call them "chefs" no matter what their nationality may be. As I write these lines the January sales are in full swing, and the shops of London "ring to the roar of an angel onset." It is interesting, by way of comparison, to give the results of a day's shopping by a middle-class young lady as catalogued in the winter of 1858: —

A TREMENDOUS BAG

Miss Lucy Smith went out shopping the other day, and brought home with her a most tremendous bag. It was so heavy that it was as much as the page could do to bring it into the parlour to be inspected by the ladies. Upon its contents being emptied on to the dining-room table, it was found to contain: – a bottle of Kiss-me-Quick, a pair of white satin shoes, a bulky packet of gloves (cleaned), a dozen rolls of cotton, a paper of pearl buttons (to mend Papa's shirts), a box of cough lozenges, a bundle of violet-powder, a kettle-holder, ten yards of blue ribbon, a pack of club cards, a pair of American overshoes, a pot of bear's grease, a pound of jujubes, a velvet necktie, three cambric pocket-handkerchiefs with "Lucy" embroidered in gay flowers in the corner, a pair of mittens, a small tin can supposed to contain acidulated drops, beads and long pins and gold daggers and imitation coins for the hair, fifteen yards of the best longcloth, a bundle of brushes and small jars of gum for potichomanie work, small curling-irons, several small pots containing perfumes and mysterious volatile essences for the toilette-table, numerous papers of different varieties of Berlin wool with coloured pattern of Brigand for the same, two ounces of shot to sew round the bottom of one's dress, seven yards of edging for night-caps, a set of doll's tea things, two packages of bird-seed for the canary, a bath bun, one Convent Call and Two Fond Hearts, with Ten Thousand a Year. Besides the above, there was concealed inside the longcloth a yellow book that looked suspiciously like a French novel; but as it was hastily snatched up by Miss Lucy, it is perfectly impossible to mention the name of it. Miss Smith was not a little pleased with the results of her day's sport, having brought down every one of the articles enumerated in the bag herself in the space of little more than four hours and a quarter.