Rothschild, elected as Whig Member for the City of London, and re-elected in 1852, 1854, and twice in 1857, was still refused permission to take part in the privileges of the House, though allowed to sit below the Bar, and remain there when notice was taken of strangers. In all, nine Bills giving the Jews relief had been passed by the Commons since 1830 and rejected by the Lords, before the tenth, and last, introduced by Lord John Russell in 1858, led to a compromise under which each House was enabled to determine the form in which the oath should be taken by its members. On July 26, 1858, Baron Rothschild's "barrow" was removed, and he was permitted to swear the oath of allegiance in the Jewish form and take his seat. To Lord John Russell belonged the chief credit for carrying through this reform and abating a crying scandal, but undoubtedly Punch lent him valuable free-lance help throughout.
[8] Mawworm was an eighteenth-century forerunner of Chadband in Bickerstaffe's play The Hypocrite.
[9] Life of Disraeli (Monypenny and Buckle), Vol. vi., p. 635.
FROM PEACE TO WAR
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.
