Mr. Punch's History of Modern England (Vol. 1-4). Charles L. Graves
Punch as a letting-off of alarmist steam. "Folks who feared an invasion, authorized by Lord Ellesmere and the Duke of Wellington, have said their say, have contributed their quota to absurdity, and, satisfied with the effect, may now rest content for life." In the same vein the suggestion of the formation of a National Guard who should train and practise shooting on Sundays provokes sarcastic comment on this new form of "Sunday balls." The enrolment of Special Constables, as a precaution against the violence of the "physical force" extremists among the Chartists, is a frequent theme of comment generally jocular and unsympathetic.
England's immunity from the general upheaval made for optimism. Cobden in 1848 and 1849 was still in favour with Punch as the "cleverest Cob" in England and the apostle of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." His Arbitration Motion in the latter year met with Punch's cordial approval:—
PEACE AND WAR IN PARLIAMENT
Mr. Cobden took a businesslike view of the question, and by the practicability of his notions obtained the expressed goodwill—could more be expected?—of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. For ourselves, we entirely accord with the position of Mr. Cobden, and have a most cheerful faith in the ultimate prosperity of his doctrines, for they are mingling themselves with the best thoughts of the people, who are every day more and more assured that whatever may be the cause of war, they are the first sacrificed for it; it is they who pay the cost. Just as the sheep is stripped of his skin for the noisy barbarous drum, to beat the lie of glory, so are the people stripped to pay for the music.
The romance of one era is the reality of the next. The Arbitration Question has taken root, and will grow and spread. They show a cedar in the gardens at Paris—a cedar of hugest girth and widest shape—that, some century ago, was brought from Lebanon in the cap of a traveller. The olive twig, planted by Mr. Cobden in Westminster, will flourish despite the blighting wit of mess-rooms, and rise and spread into a tree that shall offer shade and security to all nations.
In a similar vein is the welcome extended to the Peace Congress in Paris:—
THE PARLIAMENT OF PEACE IN PARIS
Anyway, the cause of peace has been reverently preached, and reverently listened to, in the warlike city of Paris. Within a walk of the tomb of the great peace-breaker—who turned kingdoms into graves, and whose miserable purple was dyed in the heart's blood of human freedom—even there peace has been worshipped. Napoleon in his violet robe—beset with golden bees—the bees that, as in the lion of the olden day, swarmed in carcases—Napoleon, with his Pope-blessed crown clipping his homicidal brain, is, after all, a portentous, glistering evil—contrasted with our Quaker friend [Joseph Sturge], who, risen in the Hall of St. Cecilia, condemns aggressive war as an abomination, a nuisance that it behoves man, in this season of his soul's progress, with all his heart and all his mind, to denounce and renounce as un-Christian, vile, and brutifying. The drab against the purple; and, in our small thoughts, the drab, so preaching, carries it.
So, again, Punch breaks a lance in defence of the Peace Congress in the year 1850 at Frankfort. What if it were inspired by visionary aims? All great reformers, idealists and benefactors—Harvey, Jenner, Stephenson—had been ridiculed by unthinking and unimaginative critics:—
TO THE LAUGHERS
The Peace Congress is a capital joke. It's so obvious a subject for fun that we haven't thought it worth while to waste a laugh on it. All manner of pens have been poking the public in the ribs about it—paper pellets of all colours and weights have been slung at it—arrows from all quivers have been emptied on its vulnerable sides.
"Preach Peace to the World!" The poor noodles! "Inculcate the supremacy of right over might!" Ineffable milk-and-water spoonies! "Hold out to nations brotherhood for warfare, the award of justice instead of the bayonet!" The white-faced, lily-livered prigs!
"Why, it's the merest Utopianism," says the Economist.
"It's neither more nor less than Christianity," sneers the Statist; "Trade is the peace-maker," says the Doctor of the Manchester School; "Diplomacy keeps the world quiet," jocularly declares the Red-tapist; "Peace indeed, the designing democrat!" growls the Absolutist; "Peace, with a bloated Aristocracy still rampant!" snarls the Red Republican. And they all drown in a chorus of contemptuous laughter the pleading voices of the poor Peace Congressists in the Church of St. Paul.
But there are some voices which refuse to join in this chorus. And there are some, too, of the wise and the great who can discern in this gathering of friends of peace, this little Babel of various tongues, this tiny congress of many races, a thing in no way to be ridiculed any more than the acorn is to be ridiculed when Science declares that its heart contains the Oak.
The pacificist note had already been sounded when the Duke of Wellington publicly declared in 1849 that it was time ignorance should cease in the Army, on which Punch remarked "When the aforesaid ignorance ceases, how long will the British Army last?" And in the same year, while condemning the Government for refusing to pay for enlarging the National Gallery, he protested against the Naval Estimates as past a joke "when £158,000 might be spent on a frigate including her total loss at sea." On naval matters Punch foretold many things, but he did not foresee the advent or predict the cost of the super-Dreadnought. Indeed, if the truth be told, he was extremely sceptical as to the efficiency of ironclads at all. They were "ferreous freaks": vessels "made in foundries were sure to founder." He is on safer ground altogether when he assails with great spirit and caustic irony the refusal of the Admiralty in 1850 to admit naval surgeons to the wardroom, and proclaimed in vehement accents that he was "made positively ill" by the arguments of those who opposed Captain Boldero's proposals. The status and dignity of Army and Navy doctors and surgeons were near to his heart, and he scornfully resented the view that while "glory may be written on a drum head, it is not to be put down on lint."
The turning point at which Punch's pacificist zeal began to cool was reached in 1849, and the change grew out of a generous sympathy with Italy and Hungary. The repeated warnings addressed by Palmerston to Austria, the independent action which so often embarrassed his colleagues and annoyed his Sovereign, and his support of Turkey in refusing to surrender Kossuth (though he subsequently repudiated any responsibility for his welcome in England), were warmly praised by Punch, who welcomed his declaration as a "bugle note." In 1850 Punch waxed humorous at the expense of Sir Francis Head, who wrote a book in which he demonstrated that 150,000 Frenchmen could invade London with the greatest ease. The coup d'ètat of 1851, and suspicion of the aims of Louis Napoleon, whom Punch described as a "perjured homicide," converted him into a supporter of rifle clubs as "patriotic and needful." The Russell Cabinet fell over the Local Militia Bill, Palmerston carrying an amendment which omitted the word "local" from the title of the Bill, so as to make the Militia generally available as an Army Reserve. Palmerston had already resigned, or been dismissed, for exceeding his functions as Foreign Minister by expressing his private approval of the policy of Louis Napoleon, but in spite of this Punch regretted the loss of the strong man of the Cabinet. The year 1852 opened in gloom and misgiving, faithfully reflected in the lines on "Retrospect and Prospect: or 1851 and 1852," with their picture of the anxious vigil of England.
THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING
"I'm very sorry, Palmerston, that you cannot agree with your fellow-servants; but as I don't feel inclined to part with John, you must go, of course."
"Defence not defiance" is the keynote of the appeal, "Speak, Mr. Cobden!" but it foreshadowed a cleavage which was soon to develop into bitter antagonism:—
Armaments useless our money to spend on,
Certainly we should be acting like geese;
But have we any sure ground to depend on,
In trusting our neighbours will leave us at peace?
Speak, Mr. Cobden!
The services of Volunteer Rifle Corps were accepted by the Government, and Punch (who was extremely satirical at the expense