The moral is summed up in the last four lines:—
And, behold, though the Sun-God is silent, the Son of the Sun-God asleep,
Still merciless Mammon is master, the slaves of the Gold-God still weep;
Be his ministers Hebrew or Gentile, his worship is cruelty still;
Still the worker must sweat 'neath the scourge that the stores of the tyrant may fill.
Lord Dunraven withdrew from the Commission, and Punch congratulated him on his retirement, though it "seemed caused by a fad," when the Report was published in 1890. The recommendations were inadequate, in Punch's view. He spoke contemptuously of applying the "rose-water cure" and whitewashing the sweater, whom he depicts as a monster vampire. Socialism, as we have seen, was a serpent of the boa constrictor type. The tendency to big combines was typified by an octopus, labelled Monopoly, controlling cotton, iron, coal, salt and copper, and threatening a distressful lady (Commerce) perilously navigating a frail canoe.
Bumbledom was not dead, but its activities were less blatant. Punch gibbets the stinginess of the Lambeth Workhouse when in 1875 the Guardians decided that Christmas pudding was too rich in good things and recommended a plainer variety. Fourteen years later, under the sarcastic heading, "Luxury for Paupers," we encounter the following elegant extract from the Standard of December 5, 1889:—
"At the Chester Board of Guardians yesterday, a discussion took place as to whether, in view of the Christmas dinner, it would be advisable to allow the inmates to have knives to cut their meat. It was explained that at present the paupers had to tear the meat to pieces with their fingers and teeth.... The Rev. O. Rawson proposed that they should buy knives and forks.... Mr. Charmley, farmer, opposed the proposal.... The motion to hire knives and forks on Christmas Day only was put, and carried by thirteen votes to ten."
Manchester under the Microscope