Elizabeth Waring (Laundress and Charwoman, and Sunday School Teacher to the U.C.): "And now, my dear little Ladies and Gentlemen, I trust you will not desecrate this beautiful Sunday Afternoon by going on the River! You can do that from Monday Morning till Saturday Night, you know! His Lordship here, who was at Eton and Oxford, will no doubt remember how the Oars he had plied so busily all the week, lay untouched on Sunday! And you too, my dears, will please to give up the River, on that one day—to those who have been toiling all the busy Week long in stifling Offices and grimy Workshops, and suchlike!"
Wages, as I have remarked above, were still remarkably low, judged by our post-war standards. In 1880 Punch quotes an advertisement from the Lincoln Gazette for an "active young town crier and bill-poster who can live on 1s. 3d. a week." But prices were low also, and by the mid 'seventies cheap railway fares and excursions had led to a great increase of travelling among the working classes. The "cheap tripper" figures largely in Punch throughout these years, and his (and her) manners and customs lent themselves more readily to satire than sympathy. Punch was still the friend as well as the critic of the masses, and when in 1883 the steam launch nuisance on the Thames was exciting a good deal of inflammatory comment, published his "Sunday School for the Upper Classes," in which a laundress and charwoman is seen giving a lesson to young gentlefolk, turning the tables on their Sabbatarian teaching, and asking them to give up the river on Sunday to those who worked all the week. But here, as so often, Punch showed his habitual impartiality by simultaneously admitting that the state of the river was a scandal, and welcoming an official inquiry by the Thames Conservancy Board. A year later he emphasized Sir Charles Dilke's statement that the river was "a sort of savage place," with no real police to enforce the law; Punch's picture of the Thames on Bank Holiday exhibits a carnival of rowdyism, collisions, and upsets. The steam launch was no favourite of Punch. He had already shown it as an intruder on the waterways of Venice, crowded with 'Arries and 'Arriets emitting characteristic comments on the Bridge of Sighs.
THE STEAM LAUNCH IN VENICE
("Sic Transit Gloria Mundi")
'Andsome 'Arriet: "Ow, my! If it 'yn't that bloomin' old Temple Bar, as they did aw'y with out o' Fleet Street!"
Mr. Belleville (referring to Guide-book): "Now it 'yn't! It's the famous Bridge o' Sighs, as Byron went and stood on; 'im as wrote Our Boys, yer know!"
'Andsome 'Arriet: "Well, I never! It 'yn't much of a size, any'ow!"
Mr. Belleville: "'Ear! 'Ear! Fustryte!"