Mr. Punch's History of Modern England (Vol. 1-4). Charles L. Graves

      FROM PEACE TO WAR

       Table of Contents

      In the 'forties Punch, as we have already noted, stood in with "the group of middle-class men of enthusiasm and sagacity" whose leaders in Parliament were Cobden and Bright. Their views were from the first strongly anti-militaristic, and were shared up to a certain point by Punch. In his early years he was, with some reserves, distinctly pacificist. If by 1854 he was a whole-hearted supporter of the Crimean War, it was not due to any change of personnel. The gentle Doyle resigned because of Punch's "No Popery" campaign. Thackeray severed his connexion with the paper because of its attacks on Palmerston, the Prince Consort and Louis Napoleon. But the men who dominated the policy of Punch in his ultra-humanitarian days remained when he was most bellicose. Leech, who drew the "Home of the Rick-burner," was responsible for "General Février" and the Crimean and Mutiny cartoons. Mark Lemon was still editor, Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert à Beckett were his right hand men and most voluminous contributors. It was a conversion, if you like, but it was not dictated by expediency, nor did it involve a sacrifice of conviction or a desertion of the cause of the underdog. It was partly due to a John Bullish resentment of anything savouring of foreign aggression or intervention. Along with all his criticisms of Palmerston's Parliamentary opportunism, Punch gave "the judicious bottle-holder" credit for keeping us out of wars by his stiffness. Punch supported Cobden and Bright in the battle over the Corn Laws, but distrusted and thoroughly disapproved of the attitude of the Manchester School towards the reform of the conditions of Labour—witness his "Few words with John Bright" over the Factory Act of 1847. Above all, he could not stomach the over-candid friend who invariably sided against his country.

      "GENERAL FÉVRIER" TURNED TRAITOR

      "Russia has two Generals in whom she can confide—Generals Janvier and Février."—Speech of the late Emperor of Russia.

      With this much by way of preface we may note that the anti-militaristic tirades of these early years are mainly directed against the needless pomp and pageantry, expense and extravagance of the services. Punch's campaign against duelling is another matter, and here at least he never recanted his detestation of "the law of the pistol." He did not spare even the Duke of Wellington, but made sarcastic reference to his meeting with Lord Winchilsea in 1843, and in his cartoon represented the principals wearing frock-coats and fool's caps. There is an indignant letter to Peel the following March, when that statesman refused to bring in a Bill against duelling, or to reprimand the Irish Attorney-General for challenging in open court the opposing counsel in the O'Connell trial; and when Peel further declined to grant a pension to the widow of Colonel Fawcett, a distinguished officer who lost his life in a duel, this refusal prompted a famous cartoon a fortnight later, accompanied by this vitriolic comment:—

      If a statue be ever erected to the living honour or the memory of Sir Robert Peel, the artist will wholly fail in his illustration of the true greatness of the statesman unless he deck the bronze with widow's cap and weepers. In the long and sinuous career of the noble baronet, we know of nothing equal to his denial of a pension to Mrs. Fawcett, and, almost in the same week, his speech in favour of the "laws of honour" as they exist. In one hand does the Prime Minister hold the scales of justice, and in the other a duelling-pistol!

      Punch's remedy for the evasion of the law was to let the principals go free, but to hang the seconds without hesitation.

      THE LAW OF THE PISTOL.

       Punch as Pacifist

      The choice of the Army as a profession is discussed in one of the series named "The Complete Letter-writer," which appeared in 1844. Mr. Benjamin Allpeace, guardian to young Arthur Baytwig, pronounces against it as a gilded fraud. At best soldiers are evils of the earth, and the pomp and pageantry of war mere gimcrackery. The reality is "misery and anguish, blood and tears." This was the year in which the Prince de Joinville, Louis Philippe's third son, after bombarding Tangier and occupying Mogador, made himself notorious by his bellicose pamphleteering; but Punch was equally severe on Lord Maidstone for his patriotic rhymes in the Morning Post, and on the warlike philanthropists of Exeter Hall, who were much exercised by the Prince's ill-will towards Great Britain. Punch, prohibited in France not for the first or last time for his comments on French politics, ridiculed the Chauvinists on both sides with impartial satire, and published a "Woman's Plea for Peace with France" on the ground of our debt to that country in wine, fashion, the ballet, Jullien (the popular musician and conductor resident in London, who would have to flee in case of war), and cosmetics. Later on, in the same year, we come across "Entente Cordiale" cartoons, in which Punch assumes the rôle of the pacificator of Europe, and a letter to French editors protesting against the notion that John Bull is a plotter. Punch had already given a half serious support to Captain Warner, the eccentric inventor, who professed to have invented a long-range invisible shell to blow up ships at a distance, hailing it as a means of ending war, and developed the argument further in a curious article on the "Science of Warfare," à propos of the benevolent object of some inventors at Fulham. Their aim, it seems, was to put an end to war by making it so truly terrific that, as in the classic example of the Kilkenny cats, it would terminate its own existence by its very ferocity. Thus do we find in the mid 'forties a foreshadowing of the sinister uses of applied science and a justification of the doctrine of "frightfulness." In 1845, in connexion with the intended reorganization or calling out of the Militia, we find the first of many satirical references to the famous Brook Green Volunteer—Brook Green being "one of the bolts of the great Gate of London," as Hammersmith was the key to the metropolis on the western side. Punch at this time was a bitter critic of the methods of recruiting, and his anti-militaristic zeal reached a climax in a protest against the advertisements used at Birmingham and elsewhere, in which he calls the recruiting sergeant "the clown in the bloody pantomime of glory." He had already fallen foul of Sir Charles Napier for his defence of the "cat" in 1844. The issue of August 15, 1846, contains a personal appeal to the Queen to abolish flogging in the Army. Here is the last stanza of "Lines on the Lash: to the Queen":—

      Let thy queenly voice be heard—

      Who shall dare to disobey?—

      It but costs thy Royal word,

      And the lash is cast away.

      With thyself it rests to scour

      From our arms the loathsome stain;

      Then of mercy show thy power,

      And immortal be thy reign!

      This may not be great poetry, but doggerel verse can be simple and passionate. The appeal was not granted until 1881.

      A SILLY TRICK

      John Bull: "Come, come, you foolish fellow; you don't suppose I'm to be frightened by such a turnip as that!"

       The Invasion Scare

      In 1848 the French invasion scare was in full swing, but Punch maintained an attitude of satirical scepticism. Impetus was lent to the alarm by the letter of Lord Ellesmere to The Times, and by the letter of the Duke

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