Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 2 of 4.—1857-1874

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Graves Charles Larcom. Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 2 of 4.—1857-1874

PART I. THE NATIONAL OUTLOOK

THE AGE OF NON-INTERVENTION

THE ROAD TO REFORM

THE CHURCHES

EDUCATION

INVENTIONS, NOVELTIES AND FORECASTS

LONDON

PART II. THE SOCIAL FABRIC

THE COURT

GENERAL SOCIAL LIFE

CLASS DISTINCTIONS

WOMEN

LITERATURE

DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC AND THE FINE ARTS

FASHION IN DRESS

SPORT AND PASTIME

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These words were used by Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1896, but they were prompted by a retrospect of the Victorian age, and may serve as a motto for the policy which governed England in her relations with foreign countries in the period surveyed in this volume.

There was serious friction with France in the early days of the Empire owing to the distrust of the Emperor's warlike preparations and his manipulation of the opportunities presented by his assistance of Italy in 1859. In the war of North and South in America, England as a whole "backed the wrong horse," and English diplomacy mishandled the obligations of our neutrality. We were on the verge of war over the Trent case, and the slackness of the Government in failing to detain the Alabama burdened the country with a costly legacy of moral and intellectual damage – to say nothing of pecuniary loss.

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The proclamation of General Falkenstein, commander-in-chief of the Prussian troops in Jutland, regulating the scale of contributions to be levied on Danish landlords, is quoted in the issue of June 4 as a villainous edict, worthy of cut-throats and felons. Earlier in the year Punch had fallen heavily on Professor Max-Müller for his letter, "A German Plea for Germans," in The Times. The Prussians and Austrians were depicted, accurately enough in view of the sequel, as bandits quarrelling over their spoil, and this free criticism was bitterly resented throughout Germany. When Müller was tried and executed for the murder of Mr. Briggs in the autumn of this year, the judge was accused of anti-Prussian bias. Meanwhile Punch found little worthy of comment in the American war beyond the allegations of malingering among Federal troops, and the report that Irishmen were induced to emigrate, with promises of help, in order to furnish recruits for the Northern army.

The end of the American war came in 1865. Of its magnitude and of the deeper issues involved; of the achievements of the heroes on either side – Sherman and Grant and Farragut, Stonewall Jackson and Lee —Punch showed himself strangely deficient in appreciation. The amende to Lincoln was handsome and complete, but it was not made until after the assassination of the greatest of Americans: —

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