Gambling and Improvidence
It was about this time that, as we read in the Annual Register, "a large body of the unemployed attended service at St. Paul's Cathedral in response to an invitation from Canon Scott Holland, whose sermon was frequently interrupted by the applause of those present." Punch, in his then mood, would have probably explained this episode on the principle of "the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be." Punch was no admirer of the art of Mr. George Moore, but he had paid him reluctant homage as a moralist in 1894, under the head of "All the Winners":—
Boycotted or not boycotted, if Esther Waters calls general and effectual attention to the growth of gambling, which is the real "curse of the country" in these days, it will do more good than all the Dodos and Marcellas and Barabbases and Heavenly Twins in all the Libraries in the land.
It was in the same spirit that a few years later Punch applauded the idea of establishing a Bureau of Common-sense to combat the extravagance and improvidence of the working classes. The suggestion was made by Judge Emden, the well-known County Court Judge, in dealing with the case of a man who, on wages of from 25s. to 30s. a week, committed himself to a twenty-five-guinea piano on the hire-purchase system.
"Agricultural Depression" bulks largely in Punch's pages in the 'nineties, but it is the farmer, not the farm labourer, who is singled out for commiseration. In 1893 he is shown as Buridan's Ass between two piles of sapless chaff—Tory and Liberal—overburdened by the triple load of Rents, Rates and Foreign Competition:—
What choice between the chaff of arid Rad
And that of equally dry-and-dusty Tory?
Chaplin would feed you on preposterous fad,
And Gardner[4] on—postponement! The old story!
While the grass grows the horse may starve. Poor ass!