Miss Maud Allan had not yet been ousted from her eminence by the Russian Ballet and by real dancing, and the repercussion of the cult of the "all-but-altogether" on fashionable costume is well satirized by Punch in this year. By reducing materials to an irreducible minimum this new mania, as Punch logically argues, was likely to be ruinous to trade as well as to railway porters and carriers, since large trunks were no longer necessary and a whole wardrobe could be carried in a handbag or suitcase. Another view of the situation is expressed in the comment of the wife of the frugal Scot who had protested against the idea of her taking to this "awfu' gear": "Hoots, mon! Dinna ye see it's just made wi' aboot hauf the material." Conflicting tendencies can always be simultaneously illustrated in the vagaries of feminine fashion, for along with this alarming "skimpiness" went the cult of huge fur head-dresses and muffs with animals' muzzles thereon. In the lines quoted above the arrival of the "hobble" or "harem" skirt is foreshadowed. In 1910 this strange Oriental monstrosity is ridiculed in the picture of the girl hopping to catch her train, as running was out of the question, and again in the comment of the navvy who feels that he is at last in the fashion with his knee-straps.
THE SPARTAN MOTHER
The Perversities of Mode
The progress of fashion in the decade 1901-1911 is well illustrated in the parallel groups given in the latter year and showing the change from homely comfort to aggressive scantiness. Even better is the admirable representation—it is hardly a caricature—of the old and new types of fashion plate; the former insipid and simpering lay figures, the latter sinister modern Messalinas. Beyond an increasing tendency to extravagance and eccentricity and the general use of paint there is little to note in the remaining years of this period. The brief reign of the "pannier" skirt impelled Punch, under the heading of "Pockets at last," to indicate how use might here be combined with so-called ornament. The big-hat craze continued; the habit of poking the head forward—noted in the verses on the "Directoire" style—became so pronounced that "backbones were out of fashion" and an erect deportment made a woman "look all wrong"; while the inconsistent perversity of winter fashions is satirized in the lady with her bodice slit down to the diaphragm walking with a gentleman in a heavy overcoat and a thick muffler; and again in the "Spartan mother," swathed in furs, accompanied by her hatless, bare-legged children. Lastly, on the very eve of the War, Punch gives a pictorial table of the relative importance of the persons engaged in the production of a revue. The costumier heads the list: at the other end are the composer and a group of authors.
[LETTERS AND JOURNALISM]
In letters, as in life, the passing of "the old order" was already apparent at the opening of the period under review in this volume. For in 1892 the author of the lines immortally associated with the phrase himself passed away, full of years and honours. Punch had always been a Tennysonian, even in the days when the Laureate was still looked upon as an innovator. He had given Tennyson the hospitality of his columns in 1846 to retort on Bulwer Lytton, who had attacked "School-miss Alfred" in The New Timon. Finally, when Tennyson was laid to rest in the Abbey, Punch saluted him without reserve as the chief glory of Victorian minstrelsy. The memorial verses are too long to quote, for Punch in his elegiac moods was still inclined to prolixity, but they deal adequately with the spirit and influence, the consummate art, and the fervent patriotism of one who, after various fluctuations of prestige, is even now being re-discovered by Georgian critics.
The vacant laureateship was not filled till the close of 1895, when the appointment of Mr. Alfred Austin by Lord Salisbury unloosed a flood of ridicule. In the cartoon "Alfred the Little" Punch depicted a diminutive figure, standing on tip-toe, as he hangs his lyre on the walls of the Temple of the Muses. The laurelled bust of Tennyson is shown in the interior, while outside the figures of Sir Edwin Arnold and Sir Lewis Morris are seen dissembling their disappointment. A few weeks later the inclusion of the new Laureate amongst the celebrities of Madame Tussaud's Exhibition prompted the malicious soliloquy of "Alfred amongst the Immortals."