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in which the Lion, coming round the corner, finds the Fox has pulled down the notice "Down with Slavery" and is about to put up a Proclamation in which "Up" takes the place of "Down."

      Bismarck's hostility to the Empress Frederick was notorious. In her husband's brief reign there was a question of their daughter, Princess Victoria, marrying Prince Alexander, ex-sovereign of Bulgaria. Punch represented Bismarck forbidding the banns, and putting an extinguisher labelled "Policy" on Cupid. It was stated that Bismarck threatened to resign if the marriage plan were proceeded with; Punch, the sentimentalist, believed that love would find out a way, and it did, but in a different direction. The Prince married, but the lady was not of royal or even noble birth, and as Count Hartenau he remained in obscurity and died while still a young man.

      France also had her troubles in 1888, for this was the year of Boulanger, the brav' Général, who captivated the mob for a while, seemed at one moment to be within an ace of overthrowing the Republic and establishing a stratocracy, but collapsed ignobly in the testing hour. Punch recognized the danger in his cartoon of France ruefully balancing the Cap of Liberty on her finger. But even in L'Audace, where Boulanger is shown climbing up a steep cliff, with "Deputy" at the bottom, "President" and "Dictator" at the top, and the Imperial Eagle peering over the summit – we are made to feel that the climber is not equal to the task. The conditions are exactly reproduced in the companion picture, "Many a Slip," only that Boulanger is shown rolling down the precipice.

      New South Wales celebrated her Centenary on January 26, 1888, and Punch added his tribute in a happily-worded greeting under the familiar heading, "Advance, Australia!": —

      A hundred years! At Time's old pace

      The merest day's march, little changing;

      But now the measure's new, the race

      Fares even faster, forward ranging.

      What cycle of Cathay e'er saw

      Your Century's wondrous transformation?

      From wandering waifs to wards of Law!

      From nomads to a mighty nation!

      Belated dreamers moan and wail;

      What scenes for croakers of that kidney,

      Since first the Sirius furled her sail

      Where now is Sydney!

      A hundred years! Let Fancy fly —

      She has a flight that nothing hinders,

      Not e'en reaction's raven cry —

      Back to the days of Matthew Flinders,

      Stout slip of Anglo-Saxon stock

      Who gave the new-found land its nomen.

      Faith, memory-fired, may proudly mock

      At dismal doubt, at owlish omen.

      Five sister-colonies spread now

      Where then the wandering black-fellow

      Alone enjoyed day's golden glow,

      Night's moonlight mellow.

      "The Island-Continent! Hooray!"

      Punch drinks your health in honest liquor

      On this your great Centennial day,

      Whose advent makes his blood flow quicker.

      We know what you can do, dear boys

      In City-founding – and in Cricket.

      A fig for flattery! – it cloys;

      Frank truth, true friendship – that's the ticket!

      Land of rare climate, stalwart men,

      And pretty girls, and queer mammalia,

      All England cries, through Punch's pen,

      "Advance, Australia!"

      The same year witnessed the starting of the Australian navy. "Naturally the biggest island in the world has the biggest coast-line, and so needs the biggest fleet." The lead was taken by Victoria. Punch saw nothing but healthy rivalry between the different colonies as the outcome of the movement, but looked to Federation as the true means to prevent the different Australian Colonies from being at "Southern Cross-purposes" when they all had their navies. The trouble in the Soudan prompts a warning from the Shade of Gordon: "If you mean to send help, do it thoroughly and do it at once," but anxiety was allayed by the success of General Grenfell at Suakin, an example of prompt action worthy of the attention of "long-halting statesmen."

      Parnell and "The Times"

      The most important measure of the Session at Westminster was the Local Government Bill establishing County Councils. Punch made considerable capital out of Mr. Chamberlain's rapprochement to the Tory interests. At a meeting of the National Society, Archbishop Benson had referred amid cheers to the words of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain at the opening of a School Board in Birmingham, and his acknowledgment of the fact that Voluntary Schools must have their place in the education of the people recognized. Mr. Chamberlain's views on the Liquor question had shown a similar concession to the demands of the brewing trade. So Punch represents the "Artful Joe" walking arm-in-arm with the Archbishop and "Bung," and observing, "What a lot of nice friends I'm making." Mr. Chamberlain is already acknowledged to be "incomparably the best debater in the House"; Punch rendered full justice to his ability, but his chief cartoonist, Tenniel, though still capable of splendid work, never managed to seize and reproduce the alert vivacity of Mr. Chamberlain's features. The progress of the controversy between Mr. Parnell and The Times impelled Punch as an amicus curiæ to suggest that one or other of the disputants should wake up the Public Prosecutor in preference to the appointment of a Special Commission. The latter method of procedure, however, was adopted. The course of the inquiry was followed by Punch in a series of articles, and when Parnell was exculpated on the chief count by the breakdown of The Times witness Pigott, who confessed to forgery, fled the country and committed suicide, Punch exhibited the Clock-face doing penance in a white sheet with the lines, "His honour rooted in dishonour stood, etc." But when the Report of the Commission was finally published, Punch found it a veritable chameleon, which disappointed both sides, because most of those interested wore party-coloured spectacles or else were colour-blind.

      England was visited in 1889 by two of the most perturbing personalities in European politics, the Kaiser Wilhelm II and General Boulanger. Punch, however, resolutely and, as it turned out, rightly refused to take the brav' Général seriously, though he found in him plenty of food for disparaging satire as a shoddy hero on his prancing steed, as a "General Boum" in real life (recalling the grotesque figure in La Grande Duchesse), and as an uninvited guest, whose unwelcome arrival John Bull took as an occasion for going off to the French Exhibition. In a burlesque cartoon on France's embarrassments in choosing the right form of Government, Punch exhibited President Carnot, the Comte de Paris, Prince Jerome Bonaparte ("Plon-Plon") and General Boulanger dancing a grotesque pas de quatre before the French Electorate. But Boulanger was already ended, though his death, by his own hand, did not take place till the autumn of 1891. His histrionic equipment was perfect, and the French, though the most logical of people, are often carried away by their theatrical sense. He had served with some distinction in the army, and he was a fine figure on a horse. But he lacked the inflexible will, the iron resolution and the ruthlessness which make Cæsars and Napoleons; and Punch's epitaph is a closely-packed summary of the forces and influences which conspired to his undoing: —

      So high he floated, that he seemed to climb;

      The bladder blown by chance was burst by time.

      Falsely-earned fame fools bolstered at the urns;

      The mob which reared the god the idol burns.

      To cling one moment nigh to power's crest,

      Then, earthward flung, sink to oblivion's rest

      Self-sought, 'midst careless acquiescence, seems

      Strange fate, e'en for a thing of schemes and dreams;

      But

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