That it had Never Emerged.
The series of articles on "County Councildom" are by no means sympathetic; and the indignation of the ratepayer, who had expected a reduction in his burdens and was proportionately disappointed, is vividly and vocally expressed in Du Maurier's picture of "Reaction." The resignation of Sir John Lubbock and later on of Lord Rosebery,[6] the Chairman of the L.C.C., lent point to Punch's allusions to the jubilation of "Bumble" and his confident hope that he will have to come back. "Bumble's" idea is that the "toffs" and "big pots" were "hooking it" in disgust at the bad manners and arrogance of the "Progressives." But if the truth be told, it was not the methods of the L.C.C. in dealing with ordinary affairs of administration that disappointed and exasperated Punch: it was the spirit in which the Progressives addressed themselves to the task of regulating theatres and places of entertainment. In his verses "Ye Moderates of England" he inveighs against the grand-maternal rule of the Puritan L.C.C., and more especially Messrs. McDougall and Lidgett:—
When Lidgett and McDougall
Are censors of the play,
We can patronize the drama
In a strictly proper way.
When Parkinson's Inspector
Of Ballets, we shall know
He will stop
Any hop