Photography has much to answer for; and certainly played its part in luring the titled classes from their ivory towers, and creating the professional beauty. The "Giddy Society Lady," as portrayed by Punch in 1890, is a new version of the "Model Fast Lady" he described some forty years earlier, and though less mannish in her deportment, is much more flashy, vulgar and selfish than her predecessor. Tailor-made by day, excessively décolletée at night, and preferring Bessie Bellwood to Beethoven, this semi-detached and expensive wife as delineated by Punch is not an attractive figure. Yet with very few changes the portrait might stand for the modern society Maenad. Cigarette-smoking, it should be noted, was still considered "fast." Another recurrent type of unlovely womanhood much in evidence in these years is the "old Bailey lady" as Punch christened her many years before. In 1886 the writer of "A Bad Woman's Diary" expressly states that she would not go to a theatre in Lent, though she spends all her spare time attending murder trials. Punch did not spare the judges who lent themselves to this abuse, as may be gathered from the following dialogue:—

Her Grace: "Thank you so much for keeping such nice places for us, Judge! It was quite a treat! What romantic looking creatures they are, those four pirates! I suppose they really did cut the Captain and Mate and Cook into bits, and there's no doubt about the Verdict?"

Sir Draco: "Very little indeed, I fear!"

Her Grace: "Poor Dears! I suppose if I and the girls get there between five and six to-morrow, we shall be in time to see you pass the sentence? Sorry to miss your summing-up, but we've got an afternoon concert, you know!"

Sir Draco: "I'll take care that it shall be all right for you, Duchess!"

So, again, under the sarcastic heading, "True Feminine Delicacy of Feeling," this morbid curiosity is scarified in the conversation of two ladies in 1889:—

Emily (who has called to take Lizzie to the great Murder Trial): "What, deep black, dearest?"

Lizzie: "Yes. I thought it would be only decent, as the poor wretch is sure to be found guilty."

Emily: "Ah! Where I was dining last night, it was even betting which way the verdict would go, so I only put on half mourning!"

TAKING TIME BY THE FORELOCK

Gwendoline: "Uncle George says every woman ought to have a profession, and I think he's quite right!"

Mamma: "Indeed! And what profession do you mean to choose?"

Gwendoline: "I mean to be a professional beauty!"

It was in the same year that Punch published a double cut, showing the tricoteuses under the guillotine at the French Revolution, and, as a pendant, society ladies in a modern English Court of Justice.