Once again, in the early days of "Fun," Punch came very near to being startled with another such infernal machine. Mr. Clement Scott tells me:—"We were offended with Punch for some reason—it was in the Tom Taylor days—and we meditated, planned out, and nearly executed a second edition of 'A Word with Punch.' Tom Hood was furious. Sala was in our conspiracy. In fact, all the 'young lions' of 'Fun' were 'crazy mad.' We thought we could annihilate poor old Punch with one blow. But we never did it—because, I think, although we were plucky, we were impecunious! We were very proud, but, alas! our pockets were empty; so the whole company—Hood, Sala, Jeff Prowse, Harry Leigh, Brunton, Paul Gray, W. S. Gilbert, W. B. Rands, Tom Robertson, Clement Scott and Co., had to knock under."
From Bunn's time may be dated the better taste and greater chivalry that have since distinguished Punch, even in his most rampant moods. He has always had his butts—from the soft-hearted and, at the time, unpardonably hirsute Colonel Sibthorpe, to Sir R. Temple and Mr. McNeill, Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Roebuck, Edwin James, ex-Q.C. (who was disbarred for corruption and set up in New York, joining, as Punch put it, the "bar sinister"), Madame Rachel (the "beautiful for ever" enameller, who had not yet been convicted), Colonel North, Sir Francis Baring, Cox of Finsbury, Wiscount Williams of Lambeth, the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Malmsbury, and a host of others. But his attacks rarely overstepped due limits; nor did Punch ever find another aspiring Bunn among them. Amongst the inanimate objects which at various times Punch made his mark were Trafalgar Square and its Fountains (or the "Squirts," as they were scornfully called), the National Gallery, Mud-Salad Market, Leicester Square, the Wellington Statue on the Wellington Arch, the Great Exhibition, John Bell's Guards' Memorial in Waterloo Place, and the British Museum Catalogue—all of which, so far as they represented Londoners' grievances, have ere now been reformed.
[Contents]CHAPTER X.
PUNCH ON THE WAR-PATH: COUNTER-ATTACK.
Satire and Libel—Mrs. Ramsbotham Assaulted—Attacks of "The Man in the Moon" and "The Puppet-Show"—H. S. Leigh's Banter—Malicious Wit—Mr. Pincott—Punch's Purity gives Offence—His Slips of Fact—Quotation—And Dialect are Resented—His Drunkards not Appreciated by the U.K.A.—"Punch is not as good as it was!"
Above the head of every editor the law of libel hangs like the sword of Damocles. It is at all times difficult for a newspaper of any sort to avoid the infringement of its provisions, vigilant though the editor may be. But in the case of a confessedly "satirical" journal the danger is enormously increased, for the margin between "fair comment" and flat libel shrinks strangely when the raison d'étre of the criticism is pungency, and the object laughter.
That Punch has steered clear of giving serious offence, save on occasions extremely few, must be counted to him for righteousness. It is true that, as a Lord Chancellor once declared, "Punch is a chartered libertine." But for him to have won his "charter" at all proves him at least to have been worthy of it, the tolerance and indulgence of the nation having been in themselves a temptation. It is not so much that he has not hit hard; it is rather that he has hit straight. Indeed, as we have seen, he has struck hastily in many directions; but, save in his years of indiscretion, he has scarcely ever been guilty of anything approaching scurrility. At a time when the "Satirist" was flinging its darts at the peculiarly vulnerable Duke of Brunswick, goading him into the writing of his pamphlets, and into that crushing retaliation whereby the paper was condemned in five thousand pounds damages, Punch was perhaps the most moderate public censor and arbiter elegantiarum amongst all those who used ridicule and irony as instruments of castigation; and indulgence has been the reward that he has reaped.
That Mr. George Jones and Mr. S. C. Hall dared not face the ultimate ordeal of a court of law must be held to justify Punch's persistently caustic denunciations; while the case of Mr. Gent-Davis, then M.P. for Kennington, served chiefly to confirm the fact that "abstractions" and "imaginary personages" find their counterparts, in the opinions of some, in real life. In this case one of the Staff, who lived in the member's constituency, and had taken some interest in local politics, contributed a humorous paper to a series on which he was engaged, and it was published in Punch (November 13, 1886). In this essay a type of suburban lady-politician—a "study from Mr. Punch's Studio"—was satirised under the name of "Mrs. Gore-Jenkins." Forthwith a summons against the Editor at the Mansion House police court was the result, for the Member accepted the description as directed against his wife; but the explanation that the article was intended as a mere political satire on an "imaginary person" was held to be satisfactory, and the incident was finally closed.
On another occasion an unflattering poem on a "popular singer" was illustrated, quite innocently by the artist, who probably never saw the verses, with what appeared to be a portrait of Mr. Isidore de Lara; but no sooner was the matter pointed out than any intention to offend the musician was immediately disclaimed by the paper. At another time one of Punch's artists showed the little band of Socialists (Messrs. Champion, Hyndman, and others), who were then before the law on a political charge, as subjects of Punch's traditional "summary justice." But although Punch was quickly brought to book, his victims did not take the matter very seriously. Mr. John Burns, indeed, confesses as much in a communication upon the subject. "On one occasion," he tells me, "Punch suspended me, pictorially of course, from a gallows tree. This I, of course, regarded as Mr. Punch's humorous desire to see me in an elevated position. On other occasions he has been equally kind but less appropriate in his method of praise or censure."