[6] Charles Tyson Yerkes, the American financier who, after a chequered early life, became a railway magnate and took a leading part in organizing and financing the London electrical railways.
SOCIAL LIFE IN TRANSITION
[CROWN AND COURT]
In a period of change and transition, in which the decline of the influence of the old "governing classes" was attended by the rise of a new type of statesman, the stability of the throne and the prestige of the Sovereign remained unshaken; the veneration in which the old Queen was held in the last ten years of her reign was based on a respect which rendered her almost invulnerable to criticism. Punch, who in earlier years had appropriated the rôle and privileges of the Court Jester, and in the middle Victorian period had frankly regretted the Queen's long seclusion, never alludes to her in the closing years of her reign save in a spirit of gratitude and chivalrous devotion. We hear no more of the "Royal Recluse," for the phrase no longer applied to one who in advanced years was strenuous in the discharge of her duties. There is a pleasant story that when the Queen was informed that she had reigned longer than any of her predecessors, she said: "Have I done well?" and Punch supplied the answer:—
"Have I done well?" Most gracious Queen,