Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 3 of 4.—1874-1892. Graves Charles Larcom
replies, "Hey, but Measter! – Where be the sheep?"
The parallel is followed up in the doggerel lines: —
The Marquis Bo-Peep
Herds the Liberal Sheep —
If he only knew where to find them.
Will they ever come home
And – please Home Rule and Rome —
Bring their Irish tails behind them?
Punch, always concerned with the dignity of the Mother of Parliaments, was from the very outset exasperated by the increasing levity and obstructiveness of the new House. The levity he satirized in a series of burlesque entertainments with Mr. Whalley as call-boy and Dr. Kenealy as gasman. Dr. Kenealy's efforts to re-open the Tichborne case ended in absurdity – his motion being supported by only two members, Mr. Whalley and Major O'Gorman, that gigantic playboy of the West.2 Obstruction, another and far more serious matter, was soon organized into a science, and led to repeated scenes of which more anon. Of the new Ministers, Mr. Ward Hunt, the First Lord, was especially singled out for attack because of his cavalier treatment of the loss of the Vanguard and the Admiralty's Fugitive Slave Circulars. A propos of the former, Punch represented Neptune warning Britannia that there would be a row if she did not rule the waves properly. The Fugitive Slave question led to protracted debates and much hostile criticism. In October, 1875, a cartoon shows a slave crawling on board a British warship and clinging to the flagstaff, while Ward Hunt, popping up from the companion, observes: "A runaway slave, John. You'll have to give him up, you know! See our Circular of July 31." John Bull retorts: "Give 'im up, yer Honour!! As well order me to haul down that there flag at once!!!" A fortnight later Ward Hunt is made to reply to his friend Punch: —
We haven't hauled down the British Flag
(See one of your recent productions),
But we've chosen the other alternative —
We've hauled down our Mis-instructions.
Punch's view, expressed in comments on the debate in the following February, was that the matter should be left in the discretion of captains – as it had been for thirty-six years. He declared, not without reason, that both circulars were virtually dead, and that the country would not stand them. Meanwhile the growth of the German Navy, which in his earlier years Punch had persistently ridiculed and belittled, had begun to excite attention and misgiving; Punch, though a Liberal, was a "big Navy" man, and, early in 1875, was concerned with the dangers of our falling behind in the race of naval armaments: —
The Times informs us that, of "iron-clad cruisers of the strongest type, Germany will, in the present year, have seven built against five of our own navy." The Pall Mall Gazette is of opinion that "the Germans have too many irons in the political fire to give exclusive attention to any one of them."
But very soon, unless we get beforehand with the Germans, will they not have too many irons in the water, too?
Dizzy: "Bulgarian Atrocities! I can't find them in the Official Reports'!!!"
The restoration of the monarchy in Spain under Alfonso XII, in the same year, also gave Punch occasion for serious thought. We may pass over the cartoon representing John Bull's anxiety about Spanish bonds as a satire on British commercialism. But there is shrewd political insight in the picture of Alfonso between two fires – Bismarck and the Pope. The German Chancellor makes his support conditional on the withdrawal of the anti-Protestant edicts; while the Pope, on the other hand, maintains the claims of his Church.
In 1876 the Queen assumed the title of Empress of India; Disraeli went to the Lords as Earl of Beaconsfield, Sir Stafford Northcote succeeding him as Leader of the House of Commons; and the "Bulgarian Atrocities" proved the first phase in the conflict which made the Balkans the cockpit of Europe for over forty years. Punch did not cavil at Disraeli's earldom, though he thought his refusal of the Garter in 1878 well calculated rather than modest. He suggests, moreover, that Earl of Coningsby would have been a better title; and in the cartoon headed, "Empress and Earl, or One Good Turn deserves Another," shows Dizzy kneeling to the Queen and saying, "Thank your Majesty! I might have had it before! Now I think I have earned it!" More sympathetic are the verses in which Punch describes the realization of Disraeli's triple dream of success in Fashion, Letters and Politics – the dream that inspired him when he was only an articled clerk and a Jew boy: —
After forty years' fighting, he steps from the fire
To the height scarcely scaled in his Old Jewry dream;
Adds a third to his two wreaths of boyish desire,
Though sore set against him the stress of the stream.
And all who can honour faith, patience, and power
And the strenuous purpose that runs a life through
Like a muscle of iron, are glad of the hour
That sees his hand close on the honour his due!
Mr. Gladstone was now employing his leisure by felling trees at Hawarden, and the contrast lent point to one of Tenniel's happiest cartoons – that of "The Earl and the Woodman"; Disraeli, in his earl's robes and coronet, contemplates Gladstone arrayed à la Watteau, and observes with emotion: "How happy is this blithe peasant, whilst I, alas! – " (Dissembles.) Punch, however, was becoming more sceptical of the genuineness of Gladstone's desire for retirement, and in a parody of "You are old, Father William," scouts the notion of his prematurely posing as a Nestor.
The British Lion: "Look here! I don't understand you! – But it's right you should understand me! I don't fight to uphold what's going on yonder!!"
The Balkan trouble led to a violent conflict of public opinion in which Punch sided whole-heartedly with Gladstone against those, and they were many, who upheld the traditional view of the "Gentlemen's party," that the Turk was the only "gentleman" in the Near East, and that he might do what he liked with his own. Disraeli's scepticism; his professed inability to find any "atrocities" in official reports; and his dismissal as "coffee-house babble" of evidence brought by a Bulgarian to a vice-Consul, roused Punch's indignation against the Premier and his official informants. It was a "hideous subject" of which Government had heard a good deal and was likely to hear a good deal more: —
Let Punch speak his mind in this matter. Political partisanship and party spirit are both at low, as well as lukewarm, water in England just now; but, if anything will fire John Bull's blood to fever heat, it is such horrors as have been perpetrated in Bulgaria – and part of his wrath will assuredly be visited on those who have striven to interpose official blinds or buffers between England and the sight or shock of these horrors… The head of Her Majesty's Opposition asserted for the Newspaper Correspondents the credit which English common sense and experience unite to claim for them.
Contemporary records – including the files of Punch– do not bear out the statement about the lukewarmness of party spirit. The country was acutely divided, and dissatisfaction with Sir H. Elliot, our Ambassador at Constantinople, prompted Punch's retort, when Lord Beaconsfield declared that the Bulgarian atrocities were "beyond recall," "Yes, but your Ambassador isn't." Gladstone is rebuked for hiding in his tent; but he made amends by launching his famous, though sadly premature, phrase about clearing the Turk out of Europe, "bag and baggage."
Neutrality under Difficulties
Serbia's resistance was soon overcome, but the Powers forced Turkey to grant her an armistice, and largely through Great Britain's influence, a Conference was held at Constantinople where Lord Salisbury was our representative. A short breathing-space was thus gained, but the Conference was abortive, and war between Russia and Turkey broke out in 1877. Punch was in rather a delicate position: for while distinctly anti-Turk, he had never trusted Russia. Thus, while assailing the Daily Telegraph, Pall Mall Gazette and Morning Post for their Chauvinism, and the Tory press
Major O'Gorman does not appear in the D.N.B. But he inspired an immortal comment from a sympathetic compatriot, who calling to inquire about the Major's progress during a serious illness, was told that he was being kept up by periodic teaspoonfuls of brandy. "Tayspoons!" was the indignant retort. "And what use 'ud a tayspoon be, sthrayin' about in such a wilderness of a man?"