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

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СКАЧАТЬ of law that's obeyed because mended or made

      By men who bring forward good measures.

      Let them come then, and see what a people are we,

      Steady-going, not headlong and skittish.

      What a world this of ours would be, O foreign Powers,

      If all nations behaved like the British!

      This is Liberty Hall; no restriction at all

      On the freedom of speaking and writing;

      The result is that, say any fool what he may,

      Foolish language occasions no fighting.

      'Tis the easiest job to disperse any mob,

      Without being so much as pumped on

      By a fire-engine hose, off the multitude goes,

      Mind, Order reigns bloodless at Brompton.

      This mood is, however, tempered by moments of self-criticism. The social millennium had not arrived when in 1862 a statue was erected in Bolton to its benefactor Crompton, the inventor of the spinning-mule, while his descendants were living in destitution: —

      The spinning mule made Bolton. Samuel Crompton made the spinning mule… He died in 1827, at the age of 74, and now Bolton, whose master-manufacturers cheated him living, honours him dead with a statue… But Samuel Crompton left more behind him than the great invention and the memory of his wrongs and struggles. He begat sons and daughters as well as invented mules. He died a pauper, and they have fared as the children of those who die paupers are apt to do… One of his sons is living dependent on charity, as his father died. Somebody bought him a suit of clothes that he might make a decent appearance at the inauguration of his father's statue. Besides this son, there are living some half a dozen grandchildren, some dozen great-grandchildren, of the inventor – all, with one exception, in poverty of the meanest, most pinching kind. Not one of them, son, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, was invited to the inauguration of Samuel Crompton's statue.

      London Arab: "Please, sir, can't I have a shill'n's 'orth?]

      A sum of £2,000 had been collected for the statue: a few weeks after its inauguration Lord Palmerston sent £50 to the surviving son. Assuredly there have been few more remarkable examples of asking for bread and being given a stone. And mill-owners were not the only masters whose methods exposed them to criticism. When in 1863 the engine-driver and fireman of a luggage train were fined 15s. each at the Oxford City Court for being found drunk and incapable on their engine, Punch admits the moderation of the punishment, but asks his readers to ponder the story told by the delinquents, and put the saddle on the right horse: —

      They declared in the presence of the Company's Officers and without contradiction, that their day was fourteen hours, and that owing to extra pressure, they had only had seventeen hours sleep the whole of last week… On whom should fall the blame and punishment? On the men, outworn, and driven to stimulants as a substitute for sleep or a support under exhaustion, or on the managers of the Company, who thus overwork, or, in other words, underpay their servants?

      Overworked Pointsman (puzzled): "Let's see! There's the 'scursion' were due at 4.45, and it ain't in; then, afore that were the 'mineral' – no! that must ha' been the 'goods,' or the 'cattle.' No! that were after – cattle's shunting now. Let's see. Fast train came through at – con-found! – and here comes 'the express' afore its time, and blest if I know which line she's on!

      The cartoon published nine years later, in 1872, showed that Punch was still dissatisfied with the conditions of railway servants. A propos of the railways, it is worth recording that in 1860 there were cheap excursions to Brighton and back for 3s. Also that in 1868 Punch commits himself to the view that an increase in railway fares means less revenue – an interesting parallel to the recent controversy.

      In 1865 the cattle plague led to a sharp rise in the price of meat; but the attempt to introduce and popularize cheap jerked (or charqued) beef from South America – sold at threepence a pound – was not successful, though Punch appealed to the public to give it a fair chance in a set of verses with the refrain: —

      Oh, the jerked beef of La Plata,

      A platter give me of jerked beef.

      "Progress at high prices," in Punch's opinion, was dearly bought. When two demonstrations were held by working men at Worcester this summer to protest against the high price of meat which was attributed to a monopoly amongst the farmers and butchers, and a resolution was adopted to abstain from the consumption of meat for a certain time, Punch saw in this move a tacit acknowledgment that the high price was owing to demand, and cordially endorsed the comments of The Times: —

      There can be no doubt that the present high price of meat is mainly to be traced to the fact that the consumption on the part of the working classes has of late years enormously increased, owing to their prosperous condition, good wages, and cheap bread. A general resolution on their part to limit the consumption would soon bring down the price.

      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 him

      As 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 curate

      Are 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 СКАЧАТЬ