The daughter of a hundred earls.

It may, perhaps, be fair to regard this as a piece of impersonation—a point of view—rather than an editorial pronouncement. Anyhow, Punch was perfectly sound in his ridicule of the aristocratic pseudo-Socialist who wished to have it both ways, and of the gullibility or snobbery of reporters who ministered to her vanity. Suburban pretensions to smartness are also chaffed in the picture of the mother rebuking her daughter for relapsing to "Pa" and "Ma" instead of calling her parents "Pater" and "Mater."

What Punch could not stand, and to his credit never had stood, was the inverted snobbery of those who professed to despise the privileges and the shibboleths of rank, while all the time they took the utmost pains to let you know that they belonged to the class which claimed those privileges and that they were incapable of violating its shibboleths. This old game, revived with considerable skill by Lady Grove in her treatise on The Social Fetish, in which great stress is laid on the test of pronunciation, was mercilessly exposed in its true colours by Punch in 1907. The article is an extremely workmanlike, polite, but damaging criticism of an odious but ancient habit—that of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Another old custom—the mutual abuse in public of politicians who were bosom friends in private—was revived with such gusto in these years as to elicit Punch's comment of "Pals before Party."

PALS BEFORE PARTY

M.P.'s Wife: "I say, Archie, it's a shame to abuse poor Roddy as you did in your speech last night. After all, he's your best pal, although he is on the other side."

M.P.: "My dear girl, that's nothing to what he's going to say about me to-morrow. He's shown me his speech, and I'm jotting down a few additional epithets for him to stick in."

Though manners were in a state of flux, etiquette still survived. The orthodox horror felt by the smart man about town at anyone of his own class carrying a parcel in the streets was, if Punch is to be believed, still prevalent in 1908; the characteristic British avoidance of sentiment is illustrated a year later in the salutation, "Hallo! old man. How are you, and how are your people, and all that sort of silly rot?" Characteristic, again, of British understatement is the reply of a V.C. to the question, "Say, how did you get that el'gant little cross?" put to him by a fair American: "Oh, I dunno. Pullin' some silly rotter out of a hole." The change that had come over the relations between Society and professional actors, musicians and authors is shown in the picture of the long-haired genius who remarks, "And is this the first time you've met me, Duchess?" The Duchess is reduced to speechlessness, and takes refuge in a petrifying stare. That was in 1908, and the picture forms a good pendant to the affable Duchess of Du Maurier, who in a similar position had remarked: "You must really get someone to introduce you to me." Writing on the necessary attributes of a Lion of the Season in 1899, Punch placed an interesting personality first: literary lions were no longer popular, as most people now wrote books. Pursuing the inquiry farther, he gives special preference to travellers and athletes:—

Social Lions

Q. Then what is the best mode of becoming a Lion?

A. By discovering a new continent or suffering imprisonment amongst cannibals for five or six years.

Q. And what is the reward of such a time of misery?

A. A fortnight's fêting in Belgravia and Mayfair.

Q. Is this sufficient?

A. More than enough. The fawning of Society begins to pall after a week's experience of its cloying sweetness.

Q. Is there any celebrity other than literary or exploratory capable of securing the attention of Mrs. Leo Hunter and her colleagues?

A. Prowess in the cricket field is a recognized path to social success.

Q. And has not an amateur cricketer an advantage over other competitors for fashionable fame?

A. Yes; he can claim his days for matches and his nights for rest.

Q. From the tone of your last answer it would seem that you do not consider the lot of a Society Lion a happy one?

A. You are right; but the fêted one has the satisfaction of knowing that the fevered notoriety of a brief season is usually followed by the restful obscurity of a long lifetime.