The Transvaal had been annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in the previous year, but Punch had received Lord Carnarvon's announcement with acquiescence rather than enthusiasm.
Bismarck's Creed
On the other hand, the visit of the Australian cricket team in 1878 furnished him with an occasion for paying tribute to the progress and enlightenment of the Colonies and acknowledging England's debt to their loyalty.
The services of King Edward as a promoter of the Entente with France date back to the same year, in which as Prince of Wales he is represented in a Pas de Trois with the Republic and Marshal MacMahon. Punch applauded the visit, but rebuked the flunkeyism of the accounts given by the Paris correspondent of The Times. For the moment Germany's home rather than her foreign policy engrossed attention, for this was the time of the Kulturkampf and the campaign against Socialism. Bismarck is shown in one cartoon squeezing down the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box. These repressive measures were deprecated by Punch, and a few months later he commented ironically on Bismarck's rapprochement with the Papacy, the cartoon "Of one mind (for once!)" showing Bismarck and the Pope barring the door against Socialism and Democracy. The reminiscences of the notorious Dr. Busch had appeared, and Punch based on them a bitter set of verses, "The Pious Chancellor's Creed," adapted from one of Lowell's Biglow Papers:—
I do believe in subtle skill
Disguised as brutal frankness;
And the display of ruthless will
In rowdy Reiter-rankness.
As well shirk shedding blood for fear