LITMIR.BIZ

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July, 1883, he forecasts a general revolt against crotcheteers and faddists, his pet aversion being Local Option, which he defines as "a scheme for giving the six, who love spouting, supreme control over the liberty of the sixty or six hundred who dislike noise, and so hold their tongues until, in self-defence, they are compelled to use them."

      German Militarism

      Foreign politics do not obtrude themselves much on Punch's vision during the Gladstonian administration. But he was alive to the menace of militarism contained in a characteristic speech by Marshal von Manteuffel, the sentiment of which curiously resembles some of the utterances of the ex-Crown Prince William: —

THE PSALM OF DEATH

      "Gentlemen, I am a soldier, and war is the soldier's element; and well I should like again to experience the elevated feeling of commanding in a pitched battle, knowing that the balls of the enemy are every instant summoning men before the judgment seat of God." – Marshal von Manteuffel to the Provincial Committee of Alsace-Lorraine.

      What the heart of the young Teuton said to the old Marshal is summed up as follows: —

      Tell me not in mournful numbers

      Death is shocking. Not at all!

      Death clears off the scum that cumbers

      This o'er-populated ball.

      Death is stirring, Death is splendid,

      (Death of other men, not mine)

      And its spreading is attended

      By a feeling great – divine.

      Let us then be up and fighting

      (A la Marshal von Manteuffel)

      Set the Mob to mutual smiting,

      While we sing Death's O be joyful!

      Gambetta's brief and stormy career had closed at the beginning of the year, and Punch acknowledged the debt which France owed to his passionate patriotism and "wild strength" in a cartoon showing the Republic leaning sadly against his memorial bust while Bismarck, with arms folded, stands in the background.

      Punch had for some twenty years been, on the whole, a consistent supporter of Mr. Gladstone, but his loyalty was more severely tested in the years 1884 and 1885 than at any other time in the Liberal leader's career. Indeed, there were moments when it might be said to have broken down, and respect gave place to something like contempt. This mood was revealed in the very first of the Gordon cartoons early in 1884. Gordon is seen ploughing along through Egyptian difficulties with Gladstone, "The Grand Old Man of the (Red) Sea," complacently smirking on his back. In February Punch demands instant action. An angry John Bull bids Gladstone unmuzzle the British Lion at once, and Punch comments severely on the Premier's word-jugglery and sophistry. Later on we see Gladstone in the desert "after the Simoom," leading a camel. "Mirage" shows Gordon looking anxiously for relief from the battlements of Khartoum. A burlesque correspondence between a British Hero and the British Government pours satire on the cheap sympathy and lax opportunism of the Government, who are only concerned with saving their skin and their faces. The Premier's preoccupation with trivial home legislation comes in for indignant rebuke, and the Trelawny quatrain is adapted for the benefit of Gordon. The two cartoons in May are especially bitter. Mr. Gladstone, on the Treasury Bench, as Micawber, declares, "I am delighted to add that I have now an immediate prospect of something turning up. I am not at liberty to say in what direction." A fortnight later the Liberal Majority (or Mrs. Micawber) protests she will never desert Mr. Micawber – referring to the result of the Vote of Censure.

      Punch, however, had no intention of crossing the floor of the House. The Conservative opposition to the Franchise Bill rekindled his Liberalism. Lord Salisbury's attitude in particular excited his hostility. He figures in verse as "The Losing Leader" (after Browning), and in a cartoon as the bell-wether followed into the pit by a flock of coroneted sheep. It was "no Curtius leap, but mutton madness," and the hotheads are compared to the Gadarene swine. Punch heaped laboured ridicule on the great Hyde Park Demonstration, printed burlesque advertisements suggesting employment for peers after the abolition of the House of Lords, and indulged in prophetic forecasts of "What it may come to."

      The Franchise Bill

      The Opposition suffered from the defection or lukewarmness of some of the wiser peers – Cranbrook, Cairns and Wemyss – and finally withdrew on the unofficial but opportune publication in the Standard of the outline of the Government's Redistribution Scheme. Punch gives his own account of the incident, according to which the whole Cabinet was mesmerized into revealing the Government plans, and summed up the whole business in his cartoon, "'Bill' the Giant-killer." The little Franchise Bill is seen blowing his horn before a castle (the House of Lords) with Lord Salisbury, as a huge Ogre, looking over the battlements and dismayed to find that his castle is not impregnable against Truth. In this context we may note that the payment of members was foreseen by Punch in a burlesque "Thumb-nail Summary for 1884," printed in the first issue of that year. Under July we read: —

      Newly elected Parliament meets for the first time, and commences a campaign of active legislative reform by abolishing the Speaker.

      The "Payment of Members Bill," involving a State income of £2,000 a year, the right to a stall at West End Theatres on first nights, family railway tourist-tickets during the summer season, and free dining for self and friend at the Holborn Restaurant while Parliament is in Session, carried without a division.

      The "Payment of Members Bill," being thrown out by the Peers, the House of Lords is abolished by a short comprehensive Act, framed for the purpose, in one sitting.

      Much aristocratic distress prevails towards the end of the month, and gangs of hungry Peers infesting the public thoroughfares are prosecuted daily by the Secretary of the Charity Organisation Society, and ultimately shipped to a Coral Island in the Pacific.

      Mr. Gladstone's seventy-fifth birthday on December 29, 1884, was welcomed in a set of verses in which the eulogy is only tempered by a faint reserve as to his lack of youthful resolution and his excess of caution. Had the anniversary fallen a few weeks later, Punch might have found it harder to pay such generous homage, for on February 7 appeared the unlucky cartoon which assumed that Gordon had been relieved. Yet even then, when the truth became known and while raising the cry of "Too late," Punch, though condemning delay and caution, deprecated party rancour: —

      Not this the hour to echo faction's cry

      Of half-exultant chiding, or to ply

      The Party-phraser's venomed word-lash. No!

      But laggard wills, counsels confused and slow

      Should need no sharper spur, no keener goad

      Than this to urge them on plain Honour's road.

      The Tragedy of Khartoum

      Punch's contribution to the Gordon "Memorial" was an ode from which we may quote one stanza: —

      Gordon! A name to gild our island story,

      Opulent yet in many a noble name,

      With lustre brighter than mere statecraft's fame,

      More radiant than the warrior's glittering glory.

      Such lesser lights eclipse them in the fine

      Sun-glow of selfless valour such as thine,

      Soldier whose sword, like Galahad's, was not used

      To hew out honour, but to champion right;

      Plan-shaper who, in council as in fight,

      Wast endlessly resourceful, yet refused,

      Death-snared, an easy flight!

      Other pens were busy over this episode, which inspired perhaps the most scarifying epigram of our times: —

      Judas despairing died, his guilt confessed,

      But had he lived in this our age and city,

      He

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