Punch's chivalry to women is beyond question, but it was not untempered by a certain condescension. Throughout these years—with rare exceptions—he remains faithful to the old assumption that no woman could have a sense of humour. Grown-up sisters are frequently represented as being unmercifully chaffed by small brothers without apparently having the slightest power of effectual rejoinder. And this defect is shown in the pictures, where the women are exceedingly pleasant to look at, but nearly always quite expressionless. Yet in moments of generous expansion Punch was capable of crediting them with extremely damaging criticism of their lords and masters. The high-water mark of his sympathy with female emancipation in these years is to be found in the homely remonstrances of "Mrs. Mouser" in "A Bit of my Mind":—
... Well, the hypocrisy of men all over the world, especially the civilized!—for, after all, the savages are really and truly more of the gentlemen. They mean what they say to the sex, and act up to it; they don't call the suffering creatures lilies, and roses, and angels, and jewels of life, and then treat 'em as if they were weeds of the world, and pebbles of the highway. But with civilized nations—as I fling it at Mouser—they all of 'em make women the sign-post pictures of everything that's beautiful and behave to the dear originals as if they were born simpletons. "Look at Liberty, Mr. Mouser," said I, "look, you want to make Liberty look as lovely as it can be done, and what do you do? Why, you're obliged to come to women for the only beautiful Liberty that will serve you. You paint and stamp Liberty as a woman, and then—but it's so like you—then you won't suffer so much as a single petticoat to take her seat in the House of Commons. And next, Mouser"—for I would be heard—"and next, you want the figure of Justice. Woman again. There she is, with her balance and sword, as the sort of public-house sign for law, but—is a poor woman allowed to wear false hair, and put a black gown upon her back, and so much as once open her mouth on the Queen's Bench? May she put a tippet of ermine on herself—may she even find herself in a jury? Oh, no: you can paint Justice, and cut her in stone, but you never let the poor thing say a syllable."
"Are you going?"
"Why, ye-es. The fact is that your party is so slow and I am weally so infernally bored, that I shall go somewhere and smoke a quiet cigar."
"Well, good-night. As you are by no means handsome, a great puppy, and not in the least amusing, I think it is the best thing you can do."
[25] Miss Blackwell, as we learn from an In Memoriam notice in The Times, was born in Bristol on February 3, 1821, died at Hastings in 1910, and was buried at Kilmun, Argyllshire. She is there described as "the first woman doctor."
[26] The stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, daughter of an English officer, born at Limerick in 1818, the favourite of the old King Ludwig of Bavaria; dancer, actress, author, lecturer, who died in New York "sincerely penitent" in 1861.
[27] See the Examiner and Punch. The following advertisement in the Examiner will be read with interest:—"The arrival of Mrs. Beecher-Stowe has given an impetus to the demand for all Stephen Glover's compositions connected with Uncle Tom: 'The Sea of Glass,' Eliza's song 'Sleep, our child,' 'Eva's Parting Words,' and Topsy's song 'I'm but a little nigger girl.'"