CREMATION
Nephew: "I hope you haven't been waiting long, Uncle?"
Uncle: "All right, my boy. Been reading the paper, and had a pinch—By the by, it's queer flavoured snuff in this jar of yours, Fred."
Nephew (aghast): "Snuff, Uncle!—Jar! Good gracious!—That's not snuff! Those are the ashes of my landlord's first wife!"
Punch, always a strong advocate of comprehension, saw in cremation a means of breaking down the barriers erected between conformists and nonconformists by exclusive graveyards.
Turning to other callings and the social problems which they presented, we may note that the difficulty experienced by retired officers in finding suitable and remunerative employment had begun to attract attention in 1885. The suggestions made by Lord Napier of Magdala in that year did not meet with a sympathetic response from Punch, who, in a somewhat infelicitous burlesque, foreshadowed the strange results on hotel management of the employment of officers in various menial capacities. The hardships of the underpaid clergy and "ragged curates" are seldom referred to in this period. In 1889 we are introduced to a new type in the moustachioed, eye-glassed, but energetic curate, who observes, "My vicar's away. I preach three times on Sunday, and boss the entire show." Indulgence in slang by bishops, however, did not come in till more than thirty years later.
Social inversions are a frequent theme of comment. The new commercial Crœsus expresses a contemptuous compassion for the "poor devils with fixed incomes." The Highlands are invaded by prosperous suburban tradesmen in kilts, and pen and pencil are enlisted to illustrate the embarrassments of the "New Poor," the altered balance between High and Low Life, and the comparative wealth of the working classes owing to their freedom from taxation and responsibilities. A notable sign of the times was the emergence of the American millionaire art collector. The first great ducal sale at Stowe dates back to 1848, but it was an isolated example and looked upon as almost a portent. In the 'eighties the depression of the landed interest led to further dispersion of treasures, beginning with the Duke of Hamilton's sale in 1882, and in 1889 the activity of American purchasers excited the laments of patriotic Frenchmen, echoed by Punch. There is, however, a good deal to be said on the other side when the American millionaire happens to be as enlightened and generous as the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan and his son. The influence of the "New Rich" in England on art only ministered to Punch's sense of ridicule, happily exercised at the expense of parvenus who bought books by the hundred yards or purchased faked "ancestral" portraits. These atrocities furnished congenial scope for the comments of Du Maurier's "Grigsby"—one of his most diverting creations—who plays the part of the facetious skeleton at the feasts of "Sir Pompey Bedell" and other self-satisfied plutocrats.
"Grigsby" on Family Portraits
