Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 3 of 4.—1874-1892. Graves Charles Larcom

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ enthusiastic operative sings,

      "Toil's to be Queen of the May, brother, Labour is Queen o' this May!"

      The introduction of an eight hours' day, already vigorously agitated for, set Punch thinking on what would happen if the principle were logically applied all round – to the Courts, restaurants, theatres and the medical profession. He returned to the subject in the following year, and came to much the same conclusion – that it would turn out a new bed of Procrustes, on the ground that the universal uniformity of hours of work could not be established without inflicting serious injury on the workers. Socialism still continued to preoccupy Punch in 1890. This time it is depicted as a snake attacking an eagle in mid-air, rather a strange inversion of natural history. The eagle is Trade, the wings are Labour and Capital. The prosaic critic will ask how the snake got there except on the wings of a soaring imagination. John Burns is still a favourite bête noire, and is severely rebuked for his dictatorial and aggressive speeches at the Trade Union Congress and his action in connexion with industrial trouble on the Clyde, the ghost of Robert Burns being invoked to chastise his namesake in an adaptation of "The Dumfries Volunteer." At the Congress John Burns had said that he was "in the unfortunate position of having probably to go to Parliament at the next election, but he would rather go to prison half a dozen times than to Parliament once… He must know on what terms he must do the dirty work of going to Parliament." This was not a happy utterance, though it hardly merited Punch's bludgeoning. Burns was "perhaps Boanerges spelt little": he "laid about him like mules who can kick hard"; "the mustard had gone to his nose," etc. But in view of the way in which Mr. Burns sank without a ripple from public notice in August, 1914, there is point in the caution: —

      Be warned in good time – why there isn't a man, Sir,

      Or at most one or two, whom the universe misses;

      You strut for a moment, and then, like poor Anser,

      You vanish, uncared for, with splutter and hisses.

      The Coal Strike of 1890

      To modern readers, however, the most instructive passages dealing with industrial unrest in 1890 relate to the Coal Strike. In March of that year Punch published a prophetic journal of events, looming possibly somewhere ahead, of life in London after being without coal for sixteen weeks. It is interesting to compare this forecast with the realities of 1921. According to the prophet, people have burned their banisters and bed furniture; a syndicate of noblemen start boring for coal in Belgrave Square, but are stopped by the sanitary inspector. The wood pavement is pulled up and riots have broken out. The Archbishop of Canterbury preaches on the Plague of Darkness in the Abbey by the light of a farthing candle, which goes out; etc. Even if the recent stoppage had lasted sixteen instead of thirteen weeks, it is more than doubtful if Punch's prophecies would have been fulfilled. At best they are an exercise in burlesque, and lacking in circumstantial imagination. Punch might have foreseen the scenic possibilities of a long coal stoppage and its clarifying effect on the atmosphere. And with his belief in the solid sense of the people he ought to have refrained from the suggestion of riot. But he may be pardoned for failing to foresee how oil would come to our rescue. At the close of the same month Punch addresses a versified remonstrance to the miners. He admits that pay should be liberal for dangerous underground work, but deprecates the use of the strike weapon as ruinous to trade and other industries by the laying up of ships and the closing of factories and railways. So, just two years later, in a cartoon on "Going on Play," he condemns the miners' strike, which aimed openly at creating an artificial scarcity, and thereby kept up wages. A poor clerk is seen expostulating with a working man: "It's all very well, but what's play to you is death to us." In the omnibus strike of 1891 Punch was decidedly sympathetic towards the overworked drivers and conductors, just as he backed up the hairdressers in the same year when they agitated for an early closing day and better and healthier conditions. The verses on the Democratic Village of the Future, a paradise of sanitation in which there would be no more "bobbing to their betters," and the rule of Squire and parson would cease, are largely ironical, and the Socialist appropriation of May Day inspires a long warning to this "new May Day Medusa" – the International – in a "Hymn of Honest Labour" in May, 1892.

      Bidding for the Labour Vote

      Irony predominates, again, in the cynical verses of a year earlier satirizing the tendency of all parties to bid for the Labour vote: —

STRIKING TIMESNew Version of an Old Street Ballad (By a Labouring Elector)

      Cheer up, cheer up, you sons of toil, and listen to my song,

      The times should much amuse you; you are up, and going strong.

      The Working Men of England at length begin to see

      That their parsnips for to butter now the Parties all agree.

Chorus

      It's high time that the Working Men should have it their own way,

      And their prospect of obtaining it grows brighter every day!

      It isn't "Agitators" now, but Parties and M.P.'s,

      Who swear we ought to have our way, and do as we darn please.

      Upon my word it's proper fun! A man should love his neighbour,

      Yet Whigs hate Tories, Tories Whigs; but oh! they all love Labour!

Chorus – It's high time, etc

      There's artful Joey Chamberlain, he looks as hard as nails,

      But when he wants to butter us, the Dorset never fails;

      He lays it on so soft and slab, not to say thick and messy,

      He couldn't flummerify us more were each of us a Jesse!

Chorus – It's high time, etc

      Then roystering Random takes his turn; his treacle's pretty thick;

      He gives the Tories the straight tip – and don't they take it – quick?

      And now, by Jove, it's comical! – where will the fashion end? —

      There's Parnell ups and poses as the genuine Labourer's Friend!

Chorus – It's high time, etc

      Comrades, it makes me chortle. The Election's drawing nigh,

      And Eight Hours' Bills, or anything, they'll promise for to try.

      They'll spout and start Commissions; but, O mighty Labouring Host,

      Mind your eye, and keep it on them, or they'll have you all on toast!

Chorus

      It's high time that the Working Men should have it their own way,

      They'll strain their throats – you mind your votes, and you may find it pay!

      We have now seen Punch more as the critic than the friend of organized Labour, and it will be remembered that even in his most democratic days he evinced a deep-rooted distrust of delegates and Union officials. But there is another side to the picture, in which the old championship of the poor and oppressed is as vigorous and vocal as ever. If Punch was more mistrustful of Trade Unionism, he was at least as unsparing as in his early days in pillorying examples of the greed and tyranny of masters and employers who misused their opportunities of exploiting unorganized or partially organized labour. In the notes made for this section during this period the very first relates to the sinking of the La Plata and the burning of the Cospatrick, two emigrant ships, in 1875, and the indignation felt when it was found that the cargo of the latter vessel was highly inflammable and the boats inadequate in number. The scandal moved Punch to rewrite Dibdin, with compliments to Mr. Plimsoll for his campaign against coffin ships, which had not yet been carried to its successful legislative conclusion. He also published, in January, 1875, a mock inquiry – after the manner of Dickens's Bardell v. Pickwick trial – by shipowners into the loss of the emigrant ship Crossbones. The Court exculpates СКАЧАТЬ