Though no friend of feudalism, it is curious to note that in the vehement protest against enclosures, the closing of rights of way, etc., which he published in 1869, Punch is careful to distinguish between the old and the new rich. The closing of Nightingale Wood, between Southampton and Romsey, which "from time immemorial had been open by gracious permission to rural ramblers," was the occasion for an outburst culminating in the statement that "the brutes now fast closing the sylvan scenery of England to Englishmen, are, with the exception of an ignoble duke or two, rich rogues of speculators and financiers, who have ousted the old territorial aristocrats and squires, having bought fields and forests with the reward of their rascality."
In the selfishness of the "profiteer," as we now call him, Punch sees a sure provocative of Communism. He would clearly have applauded the distinguished but eccentric judge who in a later day erected on his country estate boards with the notice "Trespassers will not be prosecuted."
It remains to be added that the grievances of tenants and farm labourers, though far less frequently mentioned than in earlier years, did not altogether escape the vigilance of Punch. In 1861 he printed an ironic petition from a tenant to his landlord asking to be as comfortably housed as his horses. In 1868 he alludes to the scandalous housing conditions on the estate of a noble landlord in Essex—an estate which of recent years has been noted for its humane and liberal management.
Prison v. Workhouse
Far more space, however, is devoted to the administration of the Poor Law, the economics and evils of Industrialism in the manufacturing centres, and the efforts of practical philanthropy. Throughout the 'sixties and right on into the early 'seventies Punch never wearies of insisting on the folly of making life in prison more comfortable than that in the workhouse. His campaign begins with an onslaught on the guardians of the Durham Union, who appeared to think that there "ought to be a correspondence between the spiritual nutriment of paupers and their material diet":—
Under this impression it evidently was that they advertised the other day for a chaplain, offering the salary of £20 a year. Their advertisement was answered by a tender from one John Smart, who turned out to have been a clergyman's footman, and conceived that he had learned to exercise the functions of a parson from his master. He had, he said, "had a good deal of private practice, but not public."
It is painful to find a respectable man-servant reduced to apply for employment in the capacity of a Workhouse chaplain. Cannot an inferior class of clergyman be ordained on purpose to administer to paupers a coarser kind of spiritual food? Deep indeed must be the humiliation experienced by a footman in exchanging plush and gold lace for the canonicals of a chaplain whose salary is £20 a year.
It was the time of the garrotting scare. Hence the point of Punch's comment:—
The frying pan as compared with the fire is much less comfortable than the Model Prison in proportion to the Union-Workhouse.
The former of those two establishments relatively to the latter is considerably milder than Purgatory may be imagined to be, in contrast with the other place which the prisoners mentioned. Quod, in comparison with the Abode of Want, is quite a tolerable sort of Limbo. What is the moral of this arrangement, in the apprehension of the classes who have to live by their own exertions? Whatever you do, keep out of the Workhouse. Garrotte anybody rather than apply to the Union.
Punch still disapproved of the gallows; the strongest argument in its favour was the manifest truth that the cheapest thing you could do with a worthless rascal was to hang him. But he saw a better way in rendering penal servitude exemplary:—
At any rate, for the prevention of garrotte robberies and all other crimes, one step might be taken somewhat analogous to the treatment proverbially recommended for that other complaint, the influenza, which is just now likewise so prevalent. "Stuff a cold," says the popular adage, "and starve a cough." At present the moral reverse of this rule is observed in penal economy. You stuff a convict and starve a pauper. Wouldn't it probably answer better to allow paupers sufficient food and put criminals on low diet? Thus you may be enabled to get on without the gallows.