Mr. Punch's History of Modern England (Vol. 1-4). Charles L. Graves
the disproportionate amount of space devoted to crime and criminals and causes célèbres, the habit of burning the idols of yesterday, the nauseating compliments paid to statesmen after death by those who had maligned them in their lifetime. Many of the least reputable exploits of Georgian journalism were anticipated in early Victorian days. Criticism was franker, more outspoken, and less restrained by the law of libel, and Punch always stood out within reasonable limits for the liberty of the Press. When an Edinburgh jury gave a verdict against the Scotsman in the famous case brought by Duncan MacLaren in 1852, Punch compared them to Bomba, and congratulated the Scottish gentlemen who defrayed the Scotsman's costs and damages. He regarded it as a righteous protest against a verdict which threatened "to make it impossible to express contempt at political apostasy, disgust at the abandonment of principles, or indignation at any coalition, however disreputable, without the danger of being brought before a jury." The Scotsman was then edited by Alexander Russel, the most powerful, original, and enlightened of Scots journalists. Russel, for the last twenty years of his life, dominated the Scotsman as Delane dominated The Times. But it was, in the main, a righteous and benevolent dictatorship. "What made every one turn with alert curiosity to The Times in Delane's day was that nobody knew beforehand which side he would take on any new question." 24 And much the same might be said of Russel. No such curiosity is possible to-day. There has been a great levelling up of journalism from the bottom, and a great levelling down from the top. In the old days the gap between men like Delane and Russel and the penny-a-liners was greater than any gap that now exists in the profession. Not the least of their distinctions was the fact that they both died without even a knighthood to their names. Fifty years later neither of them could have held his post for a fortnight. It is to the credit of Punch that he recognized the value of their independence and emulated it in his own sphere. He played his part manfully in helping to kill the old flunkey-worship of rank, but could not prevent the reincarnation of "Jenkins" in the modern sycophantic worshipper of success—no matter how achieved. The excellence of provincial journalism—not yet exposed to the competition of the cheap London press—is attested by Punch's frequent citations, but he did not overlook its ineptitudes, some of which happily remain to refresh our leisure.
Quacks and Doctors
But of all the professions, none looms larger in the early pages of Punch than that of medicine. Here, again, a broad distinction is drawn between the heads of the profession and those who are preparing for it; between legitimate and illegitimate practitioners. Men like Harvey and Jenner are extolled as heroes and benefactors of humanity at large, and their recognition by the State is urged as a national duty. The maintenance of the status and dignity of physicians and surgeons, civil, naval, and military, is frequently insisted upon before and during the Crimean War. Punch's tribute to the services of Florence Nightingale in reorganizing the nursing profession has already been noted. He was a strenuous advocate of the disestablishment of Mrs. Gamp, and a consistent supporter of the campaign against quackery, though under no illusions as to the possibility of its entire extermination:—
Great outcry has been raised of late, in the Lancet and other journals, against Quacks and Quackery. Let them not flatter themselves that it is possible to put either down. The Quack is a personage too essential to the comfort of a large class of society to be deprived of his vocation. He is, in fact, the Physician of the Fools—a body whose numbers and respectability are by far too great to admit of anything of the kind. However, as there are some people in the world who are not fools, and who will not, when they want a doctor, have recourse to a Quack, if they can help it, the practice of the latter ought certainly to be limited to its proper sphere. For this end we could certainly go rather farther than Sir James Graham's sympathies permitted him to proceed last session. We propose that every Quack should not only not be suffered to call himself what he is not, but should be compelled to call himself what he is. We would not only prevent him from assuming the title of a medical man, but we would oblige him to take that of Quack.
This was written in 1845. The Sir James Graham referred to was one of the blackest of all Punch's bêtes noires—in consequence of the postal censorship which earned for him the title of "The Breaker (not the Keeper) of the Seals," and prompted the savage cartoon of "Peel's Dirty Little Boy." He never had friendly treatment at the hands of Punch. Elsewhere it is insinuated that the measure played the game of the quacks, and the history of attempts to regulate their activities in the last seventy years goes far to justify Punch's scepticism. But his censure was not confined to quacks; he says hard things of doctors who exploited and traded on malades imaginaires, and more than once exhibits impatience at the failure of medical science to arrive at any definite conclusions as to the causes or cure of the cholera epidemic in 1849. And when Mr. Muntz brought forward a motion in 1845 to oblige doctors to write their prescriptions in English and put English labels on their gallipots, the proposal was satirized as an effort to strip medicine of its indispensable mystery. It may be not unfairly contended that Punch, in his horror of humbug and condemnation of guzzling and gormandizing, was a disciple of Abernethy. His views on diet inclined to moderation rather than asceticism, and the new cult of vegetarianism, which seems to have had its origin in Manchester, was satirized under the heading, "Greens for the Green."
SOMETHING LIKE A HOLIDAY
Pastrycook: "What have you had, Sir?"
Boy: "I've had two jellies, seven of these, eleven of these, and six of those, and four Bath buns, a sausage roll, ten almond cakes—and a bottle of ginger beer."
Medical Students
By far the largest number of the references to medicine, however, are concerned with the manners and customs of medical students, and if corroboration be needed for the unflattering picture of this class which has been drawn in Pickwick, the pages of Punch supply it in distressing abundance. The counterparts of Bob Sawyer and Benjamin Allen, in all their dingy rowdiness are portrayed in a series of articles and paragraphs running through the early volumes.
THE MEDICAL STUDENT
Thus, under the heading Hospitals we read:—
The attributes of the gentlemen walking the various hospitals may be thus enumerated:
| Guy's | Half-and-half, anatomical fracas,and billiards. |
| St. Thomas's | Ditto |
| St. George's | Doings at Tattersall's. |
| London | Too remote to be ascertained. |
| University | Conjuring, juggling, and mesmerism. |
| Bartholomew's | State of Smithfield Markets. |
| Middlesex | Convivial harmony. |
| Charing Cross | Dancing at the Lowther-rooms. |
| King's College | Has not yet acquired any peculiarity. |
| Westminster | Dashes of all the others combined. |
Even when all allowance has been made for the exaggeration of the satirist, there was undoubtedly a serious warrant for this indictment, and we may congratulate ourselves that it is a gross libel on the medical students of to-day. They may be