Chapter 3

Prison v. Workhouse

Far more space, however, is devoted to the administration of the Poor Law, the economics and evils of Industrialism in the manufacturing centres, and the efforts of practical philanthropy. Throughout the 'sixties and right on into the early 'seventiesPunchnever wearies of insisting on the folly of making life in prison more comfortable than that in the workhouse. His campaign begins with an onslaught on the guardians of the Durham Union, who appeared to think that there "ought to be a correspondence between the spiritual nutriment of paupers and their material diet":—

Under this impression it evidently was that they advertised the other day for a chaplain, offering the salary of £20 a year. Their advertisement was answered by a tender from one John Smart, who turned out to have been a clergyman's footman, and conceived that he had learned to exercise the functions of a parson from his master. He had, he said, "had a good deal of private practice, but not public."It is painful to find a respectable man-servant reduced to apply for employment in the capacity of a Workhouse chaplain. Cannot an inferior class of clergyman be ordained on purpose to administer to paupers a coarser kind of spiritual food? Deep indeed must be the humiliation experienced by a footman in exchanging plush and gold lace for the canonicals of a chaplain whose salary is £20 a year.

It is painful to find a respectable man-servant reduced to apply for employment in the capacity of a Workhouse chaplain. Cannot an inferior class of clergyman be ordained on purpose to administer to paupers a coarser kind of spiritual food? Deep indeed must be the humiliation experienced by a footman in exchanging plush and gold lace for the canonicals of a chaplain whose salary is £20 a year.

It was the time of the garrotting scare. Hence the point ofPunch'scomment:—

The frying pan as compared with the fire is much less comfortable than the Model Prison in proportion to the Union-Workhouse.The former of those two establishments relatively to the latter is considerably milder than Purgatory may be imagined to be, in contrast with the other place which the prisoners mentioned. Quod, in comparison with the Abode of Want, is quite a tolerable sort of Limbo. What is the moral of this arrangement, in the apprehension of the classes who have to live by their own exertions? Whatever you do, keep out of the Workhouse. Garrotte anybody rather than apply to the Union.

The frying pan as compared with the fire is much less comfortable than the Model Prison in proportion to the Union-Workhouse.

The former of those two establishments relatively to the latter is considerably milder than Purgatory may be imagined to be, in contrast with the other place which the prisoners mentioned. Quod, in comparison with the Abode of Want, is quite a tolerable sort of Limbo. What is the moral of this arrangement, in the apprehension of the classes who have to live by their own exertions? Whatever you do, keep out of the Workhouse. Garrotte anybody rather than apply to the Union.

Punchstill disapproved of the gallows; the strongest argument in its favour was the manifest truth that the cheapest thing you could do with a worthless rascal was to hang him. But he saw a better way in rendering penal servitude exemplary:—

At any rate, for the prevention of garrotte robberies and all other crimes, one step might be taken somewhat analogous to the treatment proverbially recommended for that other complaint, the influenza, which is just now likewise so prevalent. "Stuff a cold," says the popular adage, "and starve a cough." At present the moral reverse of this rule is observed in penal economy. You stuff a convict and starve a pauper. Wouldn't it probably answer better to allow paupers sufficient food and put criminals on low diet? Thus you may be enabled to get on without the gallows.

It was stated, and accepted byPunchin 1860, that since 1856 there had been a decrease in crime of 25 per cent. owing to the establishment of Reformatories. But the series of papers in theMorning Postin 1863 on the Middlesex Industrial School at Feltham—where the boys were subjected to a devotional drill, made to lift and lower their hands in prayer and sing grace "to the sharp order of a master," and mercilessly caned and birched by a tall, muscular drill master for acts of insubordination—gavePunchfuriously to think:—

The Middlesex Model School at Feltham is an institution for the reformation of young thieves, but its arrangements for developing the religious sentiment in the youthful mind appear to be such as may be conceived to have been devised for mutual edification by the inmates of an asylum for idiots.

Flogging is a fine thing; but how strange that its application is limited to boys and soldiers and sailors: to children of tender ageand members of an honourable profession! Wouldn't it be at least as suitable to garrotters, and even to cruel swindlers, whose exemplary torture, in comparison with the misery caused by their crimes, would be the lesser evil of the two?

The painful disclosures resulting from inquiries into workhouse conditions are repeatedly referred to and make strange reading in a comic journal. At a meeting held in Willis's Rooms by the Earl of Carnarvon and the Archbishop of York early in 1866, the brutalities to which the sick poor were subject in the infirmaries of most of the London workhouses were illustrated in such hideous detail, thatPunchdeclared "it would be cheaper to put paupers out of their misery than it was to let them die in misery, and it would at least be just as moral."

The parsimony, the self-indulgence and the barbarous procrastination of the guardians of St. Pancras are castigated a few months later, when a motion to postpone the consideration of the appointment of an extra paid nurse for three months was carried by six votes to five. There were forty guardians; but most of them were absent at the quarterly dinner of the Burial Board.Punch, therefore, had good excuse for saying that "these nine-and-twenty parochial humbugs, instead of minding their business, were engaged in stuffing their most ungodly digestive organs with funeral baked meats."

Ignorant Guardians

The Derby-Disraeli administration had come into power in the previous month. So when Mr. Gathorne Hardy had succeeded Mr. C. P. Villiers as President of the Poor Law Board, the alteration in the methods of procedure in regard to investigating workhouse abuses provoked a well-timed and damaging attack on the attempt to whitewash Bumbledom. It is a dreary subject, but the principles which ought to govern a Departmental inquiry could not be better expressed. AndPunchwas happily able to fortify his humanitarian zeal with ridicule when, in quoting from the description of the horrors of Walsall Workhouse given by theLancet, he gives two stories showing that workhouse mismanagement in those days, at any rate, was largely the result of crass ignorance:—

It was suggested in one workhouse board-room that a bath ought unquestionably to be supplied, when a guardian got up and stated"he were agin it." He never had one in his house in his life, and he didn't see why a pauper should enjoy what he didn't want. On another occasion the absence of a proper light at the entrance door was dwelt upon, and a gas-lamp was proposed. This was seconded by another worthy, who, approving of the gas-lamp, said, "and I'd have it lighted with ile."Now the first of these gentlemen may be a regular saint. He never bathed, and he regarded his neighbour as himself. To be sure, if he was a saint he was also a pig; but swinishness has not seldom been combined with sanctity. The other guardian, who didn't know better than that a gas-lamp could be lighted with "ile," was himself so destitute of all enlightenment that he may be excused as a simply irresponsible clown.

Now the first of these gentlemen may be a regular saint. He never bathed, and he regarded his neighbour as himself. To be sure, if he was a saint he was also a pig; but swinishness has not seldom been combined with sanctity. The other guardian, who didn't know better than that a gas-lamp could be lighted with "ile," was himself so destitute of all enlightenment that he may be excused as a simply irresponsible clown.

The euphemisms of Poor Law inspectors, who used colourless words such as "inadequate" and "insufficient" when "barbarous," "brutal" and "horrible" would have been nearer the mark, had been exposed by theBritish Medical Journalin 1868. If destitution was not a crime, why, askedPunch, was the pauper treated worse than the criminal? These abuses, in the exposure of which he joined hands with serious medical journals, explain and justify the intense and even passionate desire of self-respecting poor people to avoid the Union.

Though no lover of Jews,Punchin 1869 contrasts Jewish guardians favourably with their so-called Christian brother officials. Dickens's picture of old Betty inOur Mutual Friendis hardly overdrawn, and a year after Dickens's deathPunchwas still contrasting the comforts of prison life with the usual conditions of life amongst the submerged poor.

The State had not yet awakened to a sense of its responsibilities to the "legal poor." Much was being done by practical philanthropy, and it may be fairly said that no appeal toPunchfor assistance or encouragement was left unanswered. Wholehearted in his support of Ragged Schools, he comes forward in 1858 to plead the cause of their logical corollary—Ragged Playgrounds:—

Deprive a boy of healthy, fair and open games, and you drive him to resort to unwholesome, foul and sneaking ones. Deny him any playground but a hole-and-corner court, and you'll find that he'll betake himself to hole-and-corner games in it. In default ofwholesome cricket, he'll become a dab at chuck-farthing; and will get from pitch and toss to still worse kinds of time-slaughter.

If we mean then to teach the ragged young idea, we must give heed somewhat to the ragged body likewise. And the first thing to be done is to provide it with proper play space.

Punch, therefore, may be regarded as one of the pioneers of the admirable "Play Centres" movement. In the same year we find him applauding the conversion of an old thieves' public house in Westminster into the headquarters of the Ragged Schools, and appealing for funds to maintain it. Drinking fountains had been established in Manchester and Liverpool, and Punch expresses a desire to see them introduced into London. Here, at any rate, he was prepared to welcome the saying that what Lancashire thinks to-day, England will think to-morrow.

In the domain of social reformPunch'sgreat bugbears were patronage, condescension and misplaced missionary efforts. Towards Exeter Hall philanthropy the old and rooted hostility remains throughout this period, and in 1865 we findPunchpleading vigorously for a greater interest in social reform at home to supplement the fashionable enthusiasm for foreign missions. For missionaries of the type of Livingstone he had nothing but praise, but that "perfect Christian gentleman," as Sir Bartle Frere described him, had severed his connexion with the London Missionary Society in 1857, and thenceforth had been subjected to "much hostile criticism from narrow-minded people."

Boy talking to BrittaniaTELESCOPIC PHILANTHROPYLittle London Arab: "Please 'm, ain't we black enough to be cared for?"(WithMr. Punch'scompliments to Lord Stanley.)

TELESCOPIC PHILANTHROPY

Little London Arab: "Please 'm, ain't we black enough to be cared for?"

(WithMr. Punch'scompliments to Lord Stanley.)

The benefactions of George Peabody rousedPunch'sinterest from the very first. In 1862 and 1863 his pages abound in questions as to what was being done with the Peabody Fund. But in 1864 the first block of "Peabody dwellings" was opened in Spitalfields, soon followed by others in Chelsea, Bermondsey, Islington and Shadwell; and in 1866, on learning that Mr. Peabody had increased his gift to the London poor from £150,000 to a quarter of a million,Punchwas ashamed at the lack of public recognition of his generosity. The letter from a "London correspondent" is more than an expression ofgratitude—it is a valuable contribution to the study of Victorian sociology.

MR. PEABODY'S GIFT.

"I will confess to you that I indulged myself with the thought that it would be a graceful conclusion to the reference sure to be made to American affairs in the Queen's speech, if a few words of cordial recognition were devoted to the munificence of this great American citizen. Of course, I was immediately ashamed of myself for thinking such a thing possible; and I hope you will overlook the ignorance of etiquette, routine and precedent—the shadowy creatures that hold us back when we are yearning to obey some noble impulse—betrayed by such a disordered fancy. When I read the Speech, all feelings of disappointment about Mr. Peabody evaporated, for I found that from the beginning to the end of the Royal oration there was not a line to commemorate the name and the fame of the Great Minister [Lord Palmerston] lying so near in the sacred silence of the Abbey. The shadowy creatures were again appalled by my audacious expectation, and held out menacingly a noose of ruddy tape."I then waited to see whether Mr. Childers, in proposing a public loan in aid of the erection of houses for the labouring poor, would introduce Mr. Peabody's name. He did, and handsomely; and I am not without hope that before the vessel of State gets into the chopping seas that lie in its track, the captain, or perhaps the first lieutenant, may say something on this American question which would give unqualified satisfaction on both sides of the Atlantic. You will not misunderstand me. You will not suppose that when I speak of thanking Mr. Peabody, I am thinking of gold boxes, or addresses beautifully engrossed on vellum and enclosed in polished caskets, or public banquets, or services of plate. His gift towers above all ordinary gifts, as St. Paul's rises over all meaner edifices; but it does seem to me that it should be acknowledged and gratefully recorded by the voice of the eloquent speaker and the pen of the eloquent writer, be it in Parliament or in the pulpit, from the public platform or in the columns of the omnipotent Press. To some extent this has been done, but not commensurate with the magnitude, the rarity, and the disinterestedness of the gift."When I read the unprofitable proceedings of Convocation, the discussions about canons and catechisms, rubrics and conscience clauses, I think to myself that Mr. Peabody may be doing more for the souls of the poor, by providing for their bodies, than both Houses of Convocation will do, though they should sit to the end of the century, and enjoy a fresh gravamen at each sitting."If I were the Bishop of London, out of the fund with which hisname will be imperishably associated, in every district containing a Peabody block of buildings, or dwellings for the poor, such as Alderman Waterlow understands how to build, I would provide a working clergyman, sure that he would find eager listeners in men and women, translated from styes of filth and disease, and degradation, to homes abounding in cleanliness, and health, and comfort, through the direct bounty or beneficent example of the man who has arisen to the rescue and deliverance of the poor of London—George Peabody."Perhaps the best commemoration of their benefactor by the Peabody settlements would be a day's holiday in the country every summer, on his birthday, if it falls in one of the leafy months."

"I then waited to see whether Mr. Childers, in proposing a public loan in aid of the erection of houses for the labouring poor, would introduce Mr. Peabody's name. He did, and handsomely; and I am not without hope that before the vessel of State gets into the chopping seas that lie in its track, the captain, or perhaps the first lieutenant, may say something on this American question which would give unqualified satisfaction on both sides of the Atlantic. You will not misunderstand me. You will not suppose that when I speak of thanking Mr. Peabody, I am thinking of gold boxes, or addresses beautifully engrossed on vellum and enclosed in polished caskets, or public banquets, or services of plate. His gift towers above all ordinary gifts, as St. Paul's rises over all meaner edifices; but it does seem to me that it should be acknowledged and gratefully recorded by the voice of the eloquent speaker and the pen of the eloquent writer, be it in Parliament or in the pulpit, from the public platform or in the columns of the omnipotent Press. To some extent this has been done, but not commensurate with the magnitude, the rarity, and the disinterestedness of the gift.

"When I read the unprofitable proceedings of Convocation, the discussions about canons and catechisms, rubrics and conscience clauses, I think to myself that Mr. Peabody may be doing more for the souls of the poor, by providing for their bodies, than both Houses of Convocation will do, though they should sit to the end of the century, and enjoy a fresh gravamen at each sitting.

"If I were the Bishop of London, out of the fund with which hisname will be imperishably associated, in every district containing a Peabody block of buildings, or dwellings for the poor, such as Alderman Waterlow understands how to build, I would provide a working clergyman, sure that he would find eager listeners in men and women, translated from styes of filth and disease, and degradation, to homes abounding in cleanliness, and health, and comfort, through the direct bounty or beneficent example of the man who has arisen to the rescue and deliverance of the poor of London—George Peabody.

"Perhaps the best commemoration of their benefactor by the Peabody settlements would be a day's holiday in the country every summer, on his birthday, if it falls in one of the leafy months."

The neglect of whichPunchcomplains cannot be laid to the door of the Queen. When Mr. Peabody was about to return to America in March, 1866, she acknowledged his munificence in an autograph letter, saying how gladly she would have conferred upon him either a baronetcy or the Grand Cross of the Bath (both of which he declined), and asking his acceptance of a miniature portrait of herself.

Peabody's gifts to London amounted in all to £500,000, and set an example which native millionaires have done well to follow. But he was an even more munificent benefactor to his own country, where he gave at least a million to education. When he died in London in 1869Punch, in his memorial verses, contrasted the feelings aroused in the two nations with those of the "mourners" of most rich men:—

No common mourners here such office fill—A mother and a daughter, grand of frame,Albeit one in blood, oft twain in will,And jealous either of the other's fame.But by this bier they pause from jar and boast,Urged by no rivalry but that which strivesHim that lies here to love and honour most,Ranking his life highest among the lives.Of men that in their tongue and blood claim part:And well may child and mother mourn for oneWho loved mother and child with equal heart,Nor left, for either, Love's best works undone.

No common mourners here such office fill—A mother and a daughter, grand of frame,Albeit one in blood, oft twain in will,And jealous either of the other's fame.

No common mourners here such office fill—

A mother and a daughter, grand of frame,

Albeit one in blood, oft twain in will,

And jealous either of the other's fame.

But by this bier they pause from jar and boast,Urged by no rivalry but that which strivesHim that lies here to love and honour most,Ranking his life highest among the lives.

But by this bier they pause from jar and boast,

Urged by no rivalry but that which strives

Him that lies here to love and honour most,

Ranking his life highest among the lives.

Of men that in their tongue and blood claim part:And well may child and mother mourn for oneWho loved mother and child with equal heart,Nor left, for either, Love's best works undone.

Of men that in their tongue and blood claim part:

And well may child and mother mourn for one

Who loved mother and child with equal heart,

Nor left, for either, Love's best works undone.

The beneficent use of great wealth on a great scale seldom evades ultimate acknowledgment.Punchsaid no more in his tribute to Peabody than that great and humane American deserved. But minor endeavours were not overlooked, even where they led to no immediate results. Such, for example, was the proposal of F. D. Maurice and others to found a Working Women's College in 1864. Classes for women had been held at the Working Men's College from 1855 to 1860. The larger scheme was not realized, but has been revived within the last year by the establishment of the Working Women's College at Beckenham. Such again was the establishment of the London Dressmaking Company in 1865, under the patronage of Lord Shaftesbury and the Bishops of London and Oxford, to whichPunchgave a vigorous puff-preliminary in his editorial columns.

In 1858 the fate of Emily Druce had shown that the plea of Hood's "Song of the Shirt" was in danger of being forgotten. But sweated labour was not confined to the cheap clothing trade. In 1863 West-End milliners came under the microscope of Parliament andMr. Punch:—

Public indignation has been excited by the accounts of the death of Mary Anne Walkley, a girl employed by Madame Elise, of Regent Street, wife of one Isaacson, and a notorious dressmaker. "Long hours in an overcrowded room and sleeping in an ill-ventilated bedroom," said Sir George Grey, "caused the young girl's death." What is to be done? Lord Shaftesbury in the Lords, and Mr. Bagwell in the Commons, called attention to the system under which such girls are killed; and the man Isaacson, who seems to fill a similar office to that of Mr. Mantalini, and who writes English of which that gent would be proud, issued a letter full of impertinence and bad grammar, in defence of Mrs. Isaacson's place. Thereupon the parish requested other testimony, and Dr. Lankester examined the premises, and found the dormitories rather better and the workroom rather worse than had been expected.

Lady viewing her reflection in a mirrorTHE HAUNTED LADY, OR THE GHOST IN THE LOOKING-GLASSMadame La Modiste: "We would not have disappointed your Ladyship, at any sacrifice, and the robe is finishedà merveille."

THE HAUNTED LADY, OR THE GHOST IN THE LOOKING-GLASS

Madame La Modiste: "We would not have disappointed your Ladyship, at any sacrifice, and the robe is finishedà merveille."

These tragedies and the efforts which they prompted serve as a convenient transition to a more general survey of Labour problems, Labour legislation, and Labour organization and representation as they are revealed and discussed in the pages ofPunchfrom 1857 to 1874. Under the recently establishedand rapidly extending joint reign of steam and coal, it was only natural that rural life should recede into the background. Railway construction had drawn off many labourers from agriculture, and the influx of labour into the manufacturing districts continued apace. In the prospectus of the Dressmaking Company given above, the work-hours are given as ten. But in 1859 the movement among working-men for a nine-hours' day had already been started. Strikes were common, butPunchdiscourages them on the ground that the men always lost in the long run, and that the "agitators"—the name "Labour Leaders" had not yet emerged—were the real criminals. TheExaminertook the same line in 1861 when it wrote "the submission of workmen to the tyranny of their Unions is at once one of the most curious and lamentable phenomena of our time." Yet the existence of genuine distress is not denied, and in a little parable in verse entitled "Men and Bees," profit-sharing between masters and men is recommended as the true solution.

On what was still, in spite of Factory Acts and other measures, the greatest blot on our industrial system—the employment of child labour—Punchspoke with no uncertain voice. Early in 1860 he gives Lord Brougham a good mark for taking up the question in the Lords:—

Lord Brougham, always true to his humane instincts, brought before the Lords the case of the young children employed in Bleach Works. It is a cruel one. Infants of seven and eight years old are at work for eighteen hours, and are sometimes four nights without sleep. The brutalities by which the poor little children are kept sufficiently awake for the purposes of their task-masters are shocking. Years ago, when the cruelties of the climbing-boy trade were exposed in the Lords, a noble Lord told a good story, made their Lordships laugh, and by getting the Bill thrown over for a year, left a new batch of children to the mercies of the Sweep. There was nothing of this kind to-night, and Lord Granville promised information. He will be good enough to remember that Lord Broughamhastendered information, which proves that our friend Mammon is, as usual, doing the work of Moloch.

Climbing Boys and Girls

Here, at any rate, there is no sympathy for the greedy capitalist, who comes off as badly as the "agitator." The mention of the chimney-sweeps is timely. In 1864 the employmentof the climbing boys had been prohibited by Act of Parliament for twenty years. Yet the Act had been so systematically evaded that in that year more than 3,000 children were still kept at labour in that filthy and unhealthy form of slavery. The subject was brought up in the House of Commons in April by Mr. Digby Seymour, and furnishedPunchwith an excuse for assailing those "sentimental and pious ladies" who "prefer subscribing to societies for converting little Hottentots to using influence to suppress the atrocities committed upon little white children at home." A month later Lord Shaftesbury intervened in the Lords: the details which he brought forward were too shocking for reproduction, but "fine ladies who mew over the sorrows of the Circassians, and devout ladies who send missionaries to the Chinese, had better know what is done in their own houses, and within a few feet of their own beds, with the children of white English folk."

The kidnapping of little boys had been revived, and at a meeting held in York the following agreement was signed by the assembled sweeps:—

"We, the undersigned Master Sweeps of the City of York, mutually agree, from and after this date, not to employ Climbing Boys and Girls in our business; that the Act of Parliament on their behalf made should be strictly complied with; and that we ought no longer to risk the heavy penalties it prescribes, both against householders and ourselves."

It thus appears that, in York at least, the employment of climbing girls had become almost or quite as common as that of climbing boys.

Lord Shaftesbury's "Chimney Sweepers Regulation Act" (1864) provided that a chimney sweeper convicted of causing or allowing any person under the age of twenty-one to ascend or descend a chimney or enter a flue for the purpose of sweeping it or extinguishing a fire might be sent to prison for a term not exceeding six months with or without hard labour. But master chimney sweeps still continued to "snap their sooty fingers at the law." In the issue of March 2, 1867,Punchreproduces the following business "card":—

"William Burges, Chimney Sweeper, No. 36 Bolton Street, Chorley, flatters himself with having boys of the best size for suchbranch of business suitable for a Tunnel or Chimney, and that it is now in his power to render his assistance in a more extensive manner than he usually has done. He also carries his boys from room to room occasionally, to prevent them staining or marking any room floor with their feet."

In short, there was good ground for the complaint that while a great deal had been said about our working men, but little notice had been taken of our working children. A discussion of the "half-time system" at a working men's club in which another enlightened and benevolent peer, Lord Lyttelton, took part, is accordingly welcomed as sensible and opportune:—

"By this system," said Lord Lyttelton, "which compelled every parent who chose to send his child to work also to send him or her half the day to school, a very useful compromise had been effected between the demands of labour and education.... This system, as carried out in the manufacturing towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, had resulted in the increased education, and consequent improved life and conduct, of their inhabitants, as had been manifested during the late cotton famine, and in many other ways."Gentlemen of England who live at home at ease perhaps have little notion of how hard some children work, and how needful it appears to make some effort to relieve them. From a Blue-Book he produced at the meeting we have mentioned, Lord Lyttelton"Gave an instance of a little girl engaged in a brickyard near Birmingham from 6a.m.to 8p.m., only having fifteen minutes for breakfast, and thirty minutes for dinner, no time for tea, and during one day she would have to catch and throw to her neighbour fifteen tons of bricks."What a mercy it would be to such poor little working children if their fathers were compelled to send them every day to school!

Gentlemen of England who live at home at ease perhaps have little notion of how hard some children work, and how needful it appears to make some effort to relieve them. From a Blue-Book he produced at the meeting we have mentioned, Lord Lyttelton

"Gave an instance of a little girl engaged in a brickyard near Birmingham from 6a.m.to 8p.m., only having fifteen minutes for breakfast, and thirty minutes for dinner, no time for tea, and during one day she would have to catch and throw to her neighbour fifteen tons of bricks."

What a mercy it would be to such poor little working children if their fathers were compelled to send them every day to school!

White Slaves in the Black Country

Towards the end of the same year the Town Council of Sheffield met to consider the report of the Children's Employment Commission relative to the overworking of children in the trades of that town:—

According to that Report, a boy, only nine years old, living at Wadsley, four or five miles from Sheffield, was obliged by his father to work as cellar-boy in one of the furnaces, on most days of the week from six in the morning to six or seven in the evening, and on Saturdays from three in the morning till three in the afternoon.This enforced labour at a high temperature would, if only occasional, appear to be equivalent to a somewhat long compulsory innings in the Turkish bath. Imposed nearly every day, it may be considered by some who do not consider too deeply, to constitute a combination of the Turkish bath with Turkish tyranny, and tyranny about as barbarous as ever was practised in Turkey.

Boy at an interviewA DISTINCTIONThe "Good Parson"(to applicant for instruction in the Night School): "Have you been confirmed, my boy?"Boy(hesitating): "Please, sir—I—don't know."Parson: "You understand me; has the Bishop laid his hands on you?"Boy: "Oh, no, sir, but his Keeper have, sir—very often, sir!"

A DISTINCTION

The "Good Parson"(to applicant for instruction in the Night School): "Have you been confirmed, my boy?"

Boy(hesitating): "Please, sir—I—don't know."

Parson: "You understand me; has the Bishop laid his hands on you?"

Boy: "Oh, no, sir, but his Keeper have, sir—very often, sir!"

Naturally, such outspoken comments gave offence, and in 1866 and again in 1868Punchwas very much in the black books of the Black Country for what he said on the state of morals, manners and education among the workers of that region of coal and iron. The controversy began with some lines, "The Queen in the Black Country," which were inspired by the inauguration of Prince Albert's statue at Wolverhampton. These gave pain to certain susceptible inhabitants of that town.Punch'sreply was to quote from the report of the Children's Employment Commission of 1864 on the trades in the Wolverhampton district,showing that all the large employers lived far away from the workpeople they employed; that a few ministers of religion were almost the only representatives of the upper class resident in the "Black Country"; that large numbers of children, youths, young persons and women worked the same long hours as the men, from 6 or 7a.m.to 9, 10 and 11p.m.; that among them little girls were often kept bellows-blowing fourteen hours a day.

Laws to Protect Children

In January, 1868,Punchwas accused of being a Rip Van Winkle, who had been asleep for half a century, because when Bishop Selwyn was translated from New Zealand to Lichfield he had published some verses ending up with the question, "What's the savage o'er sea to the savage at home?" His answer was to say that he wished hecould, like Rip Van Winkle, fall asleep not over the Black Country only, but over every manufacturing district of England, to wake in fifty years and find education for ignorance, thrift and comfort for improvidence and squalor, gentleness and refinement for coarseness and brutality among men and women; health and happiness for sickliness and suffering, premature decrepitude and deadening of mind among children. But the facts were too strong for him:—

We never said, or meant to say, that things were as bad in the Black Country now as they were fifty, forty, or twenty years ago. We are quite ready to believe, with a more courteous and kindly Black Country correspondent than Mr. Lawley, that much has been done, and that much is doing, for religion, education and civilization in that region as everywhere else.

IfMr. Punchhas been unfair to the Black Country, he has, at least, been sinning in good company. Hear what Mr. Justice Keating spoke from the Bench, in a Black Country case, not three weeks ago:—

"I cannot help noticing the most deplorable state of matters shown by the evidence of these girls. We call ourselves a Christian people and pride ourselves upon being a civilized nation. These two girls have said that they could neither read nor write; that they had never in their lives been at school, church or chapel; that they had never heard of the Bible; and, as the learned counsel had suggested, in all probability they had never heard of a DivineBeing. We send out missionaries to the heathen, but what avails all this when we see such a state of things at home?"

The introduction of the Metalliferous Mines Bill in the Lords in July, 1872, promptedPunchto express his ironic satisfaction:—

Would you be surprised to hear that we already protect women and children to this extraordinary extent? No children under 15 are sent down into the mines, and women are not worked more than twelve hours, and—will you believe it?—not at all on Sundays.

In the same month the Lords read a second time the Bill for protecting children against those who cruelly train them to become acrobats. There is hardly a single mention throughout all these years of efforts to secure humane treatment for working children in which the honoured name of Lord Shaftesbury is not prominent, as it was in this debate. There was, asPunchsays, no sentimentality about this interference, and we ought not to leave children to be tortured for the delectation of the lower class of folks, well-dressed or not, who are pleased by unnatural acrobatic feats.

It gavePunchno pleasure to write sermons on Blue Books, least of all when the Blue Books only gave him the blues. He usually abstained from the discussion of merely painful subjects. But just indignation often forced him to make exceptions. Thirty years after the passage of the first, and nine after the passage of the second Chimney Sweepers Regulation Act, a very bad case of evasion occurred in the North of England:—

We take this paragraph from thePall Mall Gazette:—"Chimney-sweeps, who continue, in defiance of the law, to employ 'climbing boys' may take warning from a case which has been tried at Durham. A Gateshead chimney-sweeper was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for the manslaughter of an unhappy little lad who was suffocated in attempting to carry out his orders in clearing a flue."Apart from the individual ruffianism in this case,Mr. Punchasks whether the Act which was intended to deliver little children from the most hideous cruelties is becoming a dead letter in any part of the kingdom. Is there any other place than Gateshead wherelittle lads are rammed into foul flues to be suffocated? The present generation may not remember the struggle that had to be fought out, over and over, before the children could be protected. It had to be waged against habit, prejudice, greed, ridicule; but the victory was won. James Montgomery,[1]the poet, with one ghastly but damaging volume, TheChimney Sweep's Magazine and Climbing Boy's Album, gave thousands a nightmare that lasted for years, but he carried the Act. There was a poem in the book, too, by Blake, the painter, that did yeoman's service. We got the Act, and believed that the system of atrocious cruelty was at an end. But the above paragraph wakes painful doubts.We should call the sentence on the fellow who killed the child ridiculously mild, could anything ridiculous connect itself with such a theme. We wish that this master chimney-sweeper of Gateshead could have been sentenced to two years' imprisonment, varied by twenty sound lashes with the cat every quarter day, except the last, when he should have had fifty, as a parting testimonial of the public sense of his character.

We take this paragraph from thePall Mall Gazette:—

"Chimney-sweeps, who continue, in defiance of the law, to employ 'climbing boys' may take warning from a case which has been tried at Durham. A Gateshead chimney-sweeper was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for the manslaughter of an unhappy little lad who was suffocated in attempting to carry out his orders in clearing a flue."

Apart from the individual ruffianism in this case,Mr. Punchasks whether the Act which was intended to deliver little children from the most hideous cruelties is becoming a dead letter in any part of the kingdom. Is there any other place than Gateshead wherelittle lads are rammed into foul flues to be suffocated? The present generation may not remember the struggle that had to be fought out, over and over, before the children could be protected. It had to be waged against habit, prejudice, greed, ridicule; but the victory was won. James Montgomery,[1]the poet, with one ghastly but damaging volume, TheChimney Sweep's Magazine and Climbing Boy's Album, gave thousands a nightmare that lasted for years, but he carried the Act. There was a poem in the book, too, by Blake, the painter, that did yeoman's service. We got the Act, and believed that the system of atrocious cruelty was at an end. But the above paragraph wakes painful doubts.

We should call the sentence on the fellow who killed the child ridiculously mild, could anything ridiculous connect itself with such a theme. We wish that this master chimney-sweeper of Gateshead could have been sentenced to two years' imprisonment, varied by twenty sound lashes with the cat every quarter day, except the last, when he should have had fifty, as a parting testimonial of the public sense of his character.

A Child Heroine

This was written in the issue of March 15, 1873. Just a year later, at the close of the Ashanti campaign, an appeal was made, and not in vain, toPunchto recognize the heroism of another working child:—

A TEN-YEAR-OLD MARTYR

"Dear Mr. Punch,"There will be a great deal of war-paint going round soon, in the shape of titles, honours, and decorations, official rewards for 'killing, slaying and burning.' Will you give a decoration to the little motherless girl of ten, Louisa Row,[2]who 'undertook thecooking' for her father, 'a labourer,' and his family, and died in the execution of her duty?"She has not killed anyone, black or white, except herself; she has not burned anyone's huts, or anyone's villages—she has only burned herself. She will get no glory, unless you, with a stroke of your pen, will put one little star of honour upon her unknown grave."The Author ofOlive Varcoe."

"Dear Mr. Punch,

"There will be a great deal of war-paint going round soon, in the shape of titles, honours, and decorations, official rewards for 'killing, slaying and burning.' Will you give a decoration to the little motherless girl of ten, Louisa Row,[2]who 'undertook thecooking' for her father, 'a labourer,' and his family, and died in the execution of her duty?

"She has not killed anyone, black or white, except herself; she has not burned anyone's huts, or anyone's villages—she has only burned herself. She will get no glory, unless you, with a stroke of your pen, will put one little star of honour upon her unknown grave.

"The Author ofOlive Varcoe."

Will our correspondent accept this inscription for her poor little martyr's tombstone?

Duty's small Servant, without prize or praise,How soon on thy hard life hath death come down!Take this brief record of thy childish days—Gold, tried with fire, makes the best Martyr's Crown.

Duty's small Servant, without prize or praise,

How soon on thy hard life hath death come down!

Take this brief record of thy childish days—

Gold, tried with fire, makes the best Martyr's Crown.

Punch'srecord as the champion of the working children leaves little room for criticism. And we have seen in several of the extracts given above that his severest censures are directed against the employers of labour, the greed of gain, the worship of Mammon. But if he cannot be convicted of partiality to capital, he was not always fair to labour. Even in his most democratic days he showed a distrust of "delegates." The working man's grievances were admitted, but his salaried spokesmen, when they were drawn from his own order, were condemned, with very few exceptions, as untrustworthy mischief-makers. How acute this distrust had now become may be gathered from the acrimonious article which appears in 1861 under the heading "A Dig at the Delegates":—

A Delegate is generally a lazy, idle lout, who likes to sit and talk much better than to work; and who, considering himself as being "gifted with the gab," tries to foster small dissensions and causes of dispute, that he may have the pleasure of hearing himself prate about them. In other words, he is a drone that goes buzzing about the beer-shops, and living upon the honey that the working bees have toiled for. His business is to set a man against his master, and to keep afloat the Unions that tend to nurture Strikes, by giving men a false idea of their own strength, and underrating the resources and resistance of employers. Having duped the shallow-pated to elect him as their mouthpiece and being paid by them to lead a lazy life in looking to what he is pleased to calltheir interests, the Delegate grows fat on their starvation and their Strikes, and what is death to them becomes to him the means of life. Fancied grievances and most unreasonable demands the Delegate endeavours to encourage and support, for squabbling brings him into notice and his tongue into full play, and raises his importance in the pothouse-haunting world. A claim for ten hours' pay for only nine hours' work is just the sort of trade demand that a Delegate delights in; for he knows that its injustice must prevent its being listened to, and he will have the chance of swigging nightly, gratis, pots of beer while denouncing the iniquity of rapacious masters, in all the frothy eloquence of a public-house harangue.As nobody but a fool would submit to have his earnings eaten into by a sloth, it is the business of the Delegate to clap a stop on cleverness, and keep the brains of working men down to the muddle-pated level of those who are his tools. He, of course, fears the quick sight of any workman of intelligence, lest it may see through his iniquitous designs. He, therefore, gets the best hands marked on the Black List, and does the utmost in his power to reduce the active, skilful and industrious working man to the standard of the stupid, slothful, sluggish sot.

As nobody but a fool would submit to have his earnings eaten into by a sloth, it is the business of the Delegate to clap a stop on cleverness, and keep the brains of working men down to the muddle-pated level of those who are his tools. He, of course, fears the quick sight of any workman of intelligence, lest it may see through his iniquitous designs. He, therefore, gets the best hands marked on the Black List, and does the utmost in his power to reduce the active, skilful and industrious working man to the standard of the stupid, slothful, sluggish sot.

CartoonMRS. NORTH AND HER ATTORNEYMrs. North: "You see, Mr. Lincoln, we have failed utterly in our course of action; I want peace, and so, if you cannot effect an amicable arrangement, I must put the case into other hands."

MRS. NORTH AND HER ATTORNEY

Mrs. North: "You see, Mr. Lincoln, we have failed utterly in our course of action; I want peace, and so, if you cannot effect an amicable arrangement, I must put the case into other hands."

There have always been people who trade on discontent, and would find their occupation gone were it removed. But to represent such motives as animating the majority of Trade Union delegates was a gross exaggeration; and it was both unfair and unjust to draw so hard and fast a distinction between the rank and file of the working classes and those whom they chose to represent them. The weakness ofPunch'sposition was severely tested during the war of North and South in America and the Lancashire cotton famine, of which that war was the cause. Just asPunchfailed to recognize the existence of idealism in the leaders of the North, and consistently maligned and misrepresented Lincoln until his death, so he failed to render justice to the idealism of the cotton operatives, who espoused a cause which was not only unpopular and unfashionable, but the promotion of which entailed the maintenance of that blockade which caused widespread distress and misery in Lancashire.Punch'sattitude towards America in the earlier stages of the conflict showed a complete inability to comprehend the great issues involved, and an impartial dislike of both sides tempered by a sentimental leaning towardsthe South. It must be remembered that at this time the cause of the South was favoured by nearly all classes, that it appealed to Mr. Gladstone; that the Duke of Argyll and John Bright were almost the only statesmen who backed the North; and that amongst London newspapers of any weight theSpectatorstood almost alone on that side.Punch'sreading of the war at the close of 1861 is shown in the cartoon which represents King Cotton as Prometheus, bound with the chains of Blockade, and with the American Eagle preying on his vitals. The verses which accompany the picture emphasize the suicidal folly of the eagle, but the question of slavery or the Union is not even mentioned. A fortnight later the point of the "other [Cotton] Kings" is explained by another cartoon in which John Bull, addressing the combatants, says, "If you like fighting better than business, I shall deal at the other shop."

Here the verses drive home theargumentum ad pocketumin the crudest way. Cousin Jonathan is told not to be an ass, or "bid Mrs. Britannia stop ruling the wave":—

We'll break your blockade, Cousin Jonathan, yet,Yes, darn our old stockings, C. J., but we will.And the cotton we'll have, and to work we will setEvery Lancashire hand, every Manchester mill.We're recruiting to do it—we'll make no mistakes:There's a place they call India just over the way;There we're raising a force which, Jerusalem, snakes!Will clean catawampus your cruisers, C. J.

We'll break your blockade, Cousin Jonathan, yet,Yes, darn our old stockings, C. J., but we will.And the cotton we'll have, and to work we will setEvery Lancashire hand, every Manchester mill.

We'll break your blockade, Cousin Jonathan, yet,

Yes, darn our old stockings, C. J., but we will.

And the cotton we'll have, and to work we will set

Every Lancashire hand, every Manchester mill.

We're recruiting to do it—we'll make no mistakes:There's a place they call India just over the way;There we're raising a force which, Jerusalem, snakes!Will clean catawampus your cruisers, C. J.

We're recruiting to do it—we'll make no mistakes:

There's a place they call India just over the way;

There we're raising a force which, Jerusalem, snakes!

Will clean catawampus your cruisers, C. J.

"Distressed Millionaires"

Events entirely failed to justify these truculent words. A year later the cotton famine was at its height, and an appeal for funds is headed "Welly Clamming," with the explanation, "Everywhere we hear this, the Lancashire Doric for 'nearly starving.'"Punchapplauds the zeal of the Quakers in relieving the distress caused by famine, fever and frost, and simultaneously reproduces this extraordinary advertisement from theManchester Guardian:—

Travel: A gentleman, whose son, aged 17, is thrown out of occupation by the Cotton Famine, would be glad to meet with oneor two other young gentlemen to accompany his son on a Tour, for five or six months, in the Mediterranean or elsewhere.Address F. 127 at the Printers.

Address F. 127 at the Printers.

The advertiser, according toPunch, appears to be "one of those distressed millionaires who, because their mills have ceased working, declare themselves destitute mill-owners, and devolve on the squires and farmers and the British public the duty of rescuing their unemployed workpeople from starvation."

Cartoon"A STILL BIGGER CLAIMANT"

"A STILL BIGGER CLAIMANT"

When a ship was sent to Liverpool bearing the contributions of the United States to the relief of Lancashire in February, 1863,Punchwelcomed the gift without reserve, as linking the two worlds anew by the chain of fraternal goodwill. But a very different spirit is shown in his acid comments on thedebate in the House of Commons initiated by W. E. Forster, who attacked the Government for not interfering to prevent ships of war being supplied by our builders to the Confederates, and said that we incurred great danger of war. The facts and the sequel fully justified Forster's protest, butPunchwas not content with backing up Palmerston's defence of the Government, and treated with contempt and ridicule Bright's insistence on the sympathy of the working classes with the North:—

Here it may be mentioned that Mr. Bright[3]alluded in his speech to a meeting held the day before at the St. James's Hall, where he had been in the chair, and a crowded assembly of workmen testified the utmost sympathy with the North. This meeting is grandiloquently described by the Yankee organ here, but shall describe itself forMr. Punch'sreaders. It was chiefly composed of Trade Union men, and when a person who had chosen to be free and act for himself ventured to speak, although on the same side as the other orators, these lovers of liberty interrupted him with cries of "He's not a Society man!" Mr. Bright made a fervid and eloquent speech in favour of the North, and a shoemaker came next, who abusedMr. Punch, said "that a monster in human shape had been guest of the Lord Mayor," and that "the Devil, in the shape ofThe Timesnewspaper, was carrying out an infernal purpose." A joiner then called Lord Palmerston a liar, and a Professor Beestley, or some such name, attacked the "wicked press," meaning the respectable journals. An address to Mr. Lincoln was agreed to, assailing the "infamousTimes," the "arrogant aristocracy," the "diabolical" South, our "unscrupulous moneyocracy," and the "infamous rebellion," and terminating with some gushing bosh about the vivifying Sun of Liberty. This document is penned inNew York Heraldstyle, and probably owes its origin to Yankee inspiration. To this kind of meeting, and this kind of language, Mr. Bright referred, complacently, in the House of Commons. The North must be in a bad way when such allies are coveted.

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