If "par Dieu!" is not to an Englishman's thinking rather more savagely energetic than "By Jingo!" then words are meaningless. If "par Dieu!" is to be accepted as an equivalent, and as, after all, rather a weak equivalent for "by Jingo!" then either the Frenchman has a very low idea of the Englishman's religion, or his "Dieu" means nothing more, ordinarily, than our "Jingo." But "Jingo" is not a savagely energetic exclamation, nor is the true feeling of this country to be gauged by the popularity of a Music-Hall song.

Punch was both right and wrong. The music halls are not a true index of the political sagacity of the country; but he did not foresee that the refrain of this particular song would survive, by virtue of its very blatancy, as a terse summary of national complacency. At the same time he paid homage to its merits by printing a neat Latin rendering from the pen of an Etonian: —

 
Inviti quamquam saevo confligere bello,
Adsit opus, Jingo testamur Bellipotentem,
Sunt nobis nummi, sunt agmina, tela, carinae.
 

Indian Troops in Europe

The intervention of amateur diplomatists, clerical or professorial, however well-meant, was firmly and impolitely discouraged when Turkey and Russia were at death grips at Plevna. Early in 1878 Punch endeavoured to turn such efforts into ridicule, as instances of "self-election of the unfittest." Still the naval demonstration in Besika Bay found Punch in his most pacific mood, applauding Lord Carnarvon, who with Lord Derby had resigned, and condemning Lord Beaconsfield's dangerous action and unconvincing explanations. The calling out of the Reserves still further increased Punch's anxiety, and inspired a "Proclamation" calling for self-restraint. When it was announced that Carlyle had joined Bright and the Duke of Westminster in signing a petition against war, Punch noted that the old sage of Chelsea was anything but a lover of peace at any price. But the incident which perturbed him and other critics of the Government more than anything else was the bringing of a contingent of Indian troops to Europe. Punch vigorously supported Gladstone, who held the action of the Government to be not merely provocative but unconstitutional. When the troops were re-shipped to India, he published a sarcastic inscription, to be engraved on a monument on Primrose Hill commemorating an exploit which had cost £750,000. It seems a little sum to us with our profligate habit of thinking in millions, but the frugal taxpayer of the 'seventies, as represented by Punch, thought it a monstrous extravagance. The inscription is too long to quote in its entirety, but we may give the peroration: —

 
So, having more than fulfilled
The Expectations of those who imported them
And who, after having transferred them to Cyprus,
Found themselves considerably embarrassed
What next to do with them,
They were re-shipped, quietly and unobtrusively,
To the general mystification of Europe
For the Land of their Birth;
Whence,
Though they have merited the Admiration of Some
And the Respect of Many,
And have left behind them
An Election Cry to All,
It is to be hoped that they will never again visit
The Western Dominions of their Imperial Mistress
Who, through the mouth of Punch
Gladly bids them Adieu!
Not Au Revoir.
 

Heu vatum ignarae mentes! But Punch, who printed this acid jeu d'esprit on August 3, 1878, could hardly be expected to foresee the need of August 4, 1914.

The year 1878 marked the zenith of Lord Beaconsfield's prestige, for it was the year of the Berlin Congress – from which he claimed to have brought back "Peace with Honour" – and of the annexation of Cyprus. Punch, however, was always suspicious of Dizzy's phrases and preferred to symbolize the results of the Congress in a Pas de Deux by Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, both Gartered, and in a rhymed dialogue complacently referring to their egg-dance. The Afghan trouble was assuming a menacing aspect, finely typified in Charles Keene's cartoon, "The Shadow on the Hills." Punch applauded vigilance, but distrusted the Government's intentions, deprecated the spirited policy which involved "a vague and boundless adventure of annexation," and showed Lord Beaconsfield leading John Bull by the nose in search of a "scientific frontier" – another Disraelian phrase – and the Ameer of Afghanistan, between the Bear and the Lion, exclaiming, "Save me from my friends."

The Transvaal had been annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in the previous year, but Punch had received Lord Carnarvon's announcement with acquiescence rather than enthusiasm.

Bismarck's Creed

On the other hand, the visit of the Australian cricket team in 1878 furnished him with an occasion for paying tribute to the progress and enlightenment of the Colonies and acknowledging England's debt to their loyalty.

The services of King Edward as a promoter of the Entente with France date back to the same year, in which as Prince of Wales he is represented in a Pas de Trois with the Republic and Marshal MacMahon. Punch applauded the visit, but rebuked the flunkeyism of the accounts given by the Paris correspondent of The Times. For the moment Germany's home rather than her foreign policy engrossed attention, for this was the time of the Kulturkampf and the campaign against Socialism. Bismarck is shown in one cartoon squeezing down the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box. These repressive measures were deprecated by Punch, and a few months later he commented ironically on Bismarck's rapprochement with the Papacy, the cartoon "Of one mind (for once!)" showing Bismarck and the Pope barring the door against Socialism and Democracy. The reminiscences of the notorious Dr. Busch had appeared, and Punch based on them a bitter set of verses, "The Pious Chancellor's Creed," adapted from one of Lowell's Biglow Papers: —

 
I do believe in subtle skill
Disguised as brutal frankness;
And the display of ruthless will
In rowdy Reiter-rankness.
As well shirk shedding blood for fear
Of staining God's pure daisies,
As strive to rule this lower sphere
By sentimental phrases.
 
 
I hold the great Germanic race
Is Heaven's favourite bantling,
Supreme in virile power and grace
And breadth of moral scantling.
The Franks are hounds, their women pigs
Gr-r-r! I the vain vile vermin hate!
I'd squelch them – but for pap-soul'd prigs
Who funk the word exterminate.
 

Bismarck was alive and formidable. Thiers and Pio Nono passed away in 1877 and 1878. The services of the French Statesman are tersely summed up in the stanza: —

 
Monarchy loving much, he loved yet more
The realm, whoe'er its badge of headship wore;
And, waiving self, was willing to abide
That rule which Frenchmen would the least divide.
 

In the accompanying cartoon France is seen laying a wreath on the tomb inscribed "Libérateur de la Patrie, 1872," while the shades of monarchists and Communards are seen in the background. The tribute to Pius IX is kindly but not uncritical. He had outlived the patriotic Liberalism of his younger self: —

 
Happy that one thing he did not outlive,
The charitable soul, the kindly heart,
That rigid dogma's slaves could scarce forgive,
Fearing lest he might play them Balaam's part,
 
 
And bless whom he should curse; and so they drew
Their bonds about him closer day by day
Living or dying, till no will he knew
But theirs, and as they pointed, marked the way.
 

In Home Politics Ireland largely dominated the scene during the latter half of the Beaconsfield administration. As early as 1876 Punch had dealt faithfully with the plea advanced on behalf of political prisoners in the following caustic argument: —

Killing is no murder if complicated with treason. That renders it a mere misdemeanour. A military offence, simply capital, becomes a minor offence when treasonable besides. Treason is an extenuating circumstance of mutiny and murder, and its commission in committing those crimes reduces murderers and mutineers to political offenders. Therefore, instead of being hanged or shot, they ought, if punished at all, and not, on the contrary, rewarded, to be condemned to nothing worse than temporary seclusion, and should, all of them, after a merely nominal imprisonment, be respectfully released.

Obstruction and the Remedy

This was a logical and ironical reductio ad absurdum; yet Punch lived to see it translated into practical politics forty years later. In 1877 the scientific obstruction practised by the Irish Party in the House of Commons prompted a whole series of cartoons. In one Parnell, Biggar and Callan appear as "Erin's Three Graces." In another a drove of Irish pigs (including Whalley) are shown blocking the railway line of Parliament. In a third Punch bids schoolmaster Northcote to take down not the words, but something else of the obstructives. Commenting on the twenty-six hours' sitting in July, 1877, in which the House was held up by a group of obstructives that never rose above seven, Punch observes: —

Four Chairmen – Raikes, Childers, Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson, and W. H. Smith – were used up in the night-watches, and the House was kept, by relays, against the "Dauntless Three" – for Gray, Callan, Nolan and Kirk are but recruits to the banner of Biggar, Parnell and O'Donnell, the standard-bearers of Obstruction. All pretence of argument was early abandoned; and it became a mere contest of endurance, varied by episodes of more or less – generally less – lively squabbling and chaff – if such a word may be used of anything that passes in the august Temple of Legislation. All this while the new Standing Orders seemed, by tacit consent, set aside; and Parnell, Biggar and O'Donnell moved the Chairman out of the Chair, or report of progress, again and again. And yet the Leader of the House had the rod of suspension in his hand, though he forbore to use it, preferring the reductio ad absurdum of such a night's match between the toughness of the House and the tenacity of its Obstructives. Once only he went so far as to threaten more summary proceedings, on which, they say, O'Donnell collapsed. Of course, the great O denies it.

But why, Punch must again ask, allow debates to be degraded to a farce, and the House to a bear-garden? Go to his Cartoon, ye squeamish, and be wise. With the rod in the Speaker's hands, it is not the Obstructives' words that Punch would have taken down. The House sat from four o'clock on Tuesday till six on Wednesday.

The announcement of Mr. Gladstone's visit to Ireland later on in the year prompted a burlesque account of what his omniscience and omnivorous thirst for information would enable him to achieve. Nor could Punch be moved to treat seriously O'Donovan Rossa's threat to introduce osmic acid – a forerunner of tear-shells – into the House of Commons. But it was beginning to be difficult to joke about Ireland, and there was grim point in Keene's picture of the native reassuring the English angler who hadn't a licence for salmon: "Sure ye might kill a man or two about here an' nobody'd say a word t'ye."

Saxon Angler: "Oh, but I can't try for a salmon, I haven't got a licence."

Native: "Is it a licence ye want to kill a fish? Sure ye might kill a man or two about here an' nobody'd say a word t'ye."

The death of Isaac Butt in the spring of 1879 marked the final close of the moderate stage of Parliamentary agitation; the reins of leadership had already passed into the hands of a bolder, more masterful and uncompromising chief – the "uncrowned King," as he was called, till the days of Committee Room 15. Moreover, discontent was aggravated by genuine distress in the South and West of Ireland, and here, unfortunately, benevolence was hampered by party politics, for the violent speeches made by Parnell in America at the close of 1879 were not exactly designed to assist the Duchess of Marlborough's Relief Fund. According to Punch, however, in his comments on "Irish Obstructives to Irish Aid," these speeches failed to influence the American public: —

The Zulu War

Uncle Sam is showing his sense by sending his liberal contributions in relief of Irish distress through all channels except the cruelly warped ones of Messrs. Parnell and Dillon. The arch-agitator has the impudence to accuse the Duchess of Marlborough's and all other relief agencies, except his own, of political bias. This is the Gracchi complaining of sedition with a vengeance! Pigs, we know, cut their own throats in trying to keep their heads above water. This Irish Mis-leader seems involuntarily to be imitating the short-sighted Irish animal. If any man could have frozen the current of charity – in New World and Old – it would be such a bitter and malignant advocate of mutual hate, civil strife, anarchy, and insecurity of life and property, as CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.

Ireland was only one of many embarrassments to the Beaconsfield administration in its closing years. Early in that year Punch published a cartoon on "Bull and his burdens" – John Bull as a patient ox carrying Russia; the Ameer; the Turk; a Glasgow Bank Director (commemorating a recent discreditable financial disaster); a striker; and last of all a Zulu jumping on behind. For this was the year of the unhappy Zulu war, which Punch described as "one of the costliest blunders of modern times" – it cost ten millions – and again as "alike unnecessary, costly, and disastrous." He saw in Isandhlwana not merely a tragedy but a lesson, and enforced it in a cartoon showing a Zulu warrior writing on a slate, "Despise not your enemy." The accompanying verses, while deprecating rashness, assert that the dead must be honoured and avenged. The heroes of Rorke's Drift, Chard and Bromhead, are duly acclaimed, but Punch, true to an old and honourable tradition, prints a letter on behalf of the non-combatant officers who gallantly took part in the defence. As the only rampart which they had was made of meal-bags, Punch ingeniously applies to them the phrase, "Couvert de gloire et de farine," which Voltaire had used of Frederick the Great, who spent his first battle sheltering in a mill behind sacks of flour. Cetewayo, the Zulu chieftain, was subsequently captured, brought to London and lionized, Punch observing that "the great Farini [the impresario who introduced Zazel, the acrobat who was shot from a cannon] suggests that he should be exhibited at the Aquarium."

Throughout the war and afterwards Punch was a harsh and ungenerous critic of the policy of Sir Bartle Frere, whom he regarded as a prancing proconsul and nothing more. Nor was Punch much happier in his treatment of the painful episode of the death of the Prince Imperial who, whether owing to his own rashness or the negligence or loss of nerve of his escort, fell to the assegais of the Zulus. Punch's inveterate anti-Imperialism is betrayed even in the memorial verses: —

 
Talk not of plots and plans that, ripening slow,
Are by this death struck down with blast and blight;
We have no thought but for that mother's woe,
The darkness of that childless widow's night.
 

Unfortunately, the raising of the question of a memorial to the Prince in Westminster Abbey induced Punch to abandon his resolve of reticence, and prompted other "thoughts," which he expressed with more vigour than good taste. There is no proof that the suggestion emanated from Dean Stanley, as Punch implies, though the Dean certainly favoured a proposal for which a strong precedent could be found in the burial in Henry VII's chapel of the Duc de Montpensier (the younger brother of Louis Philippe) who died an exile in England in 1807. Public opinion was divided, but democratic sentiment prevailed, and in deference to a hostile vote in the Commons the scheme was withdrawn.

Turnerelli's "Tribute"

The waning splendours of the Beaconsfield régime were not revived by the launching of one of the last of his phrases, "Imperium et Libertas." Punch only saw in it "the catchword of a self-seeking swaggerer." Great men suffer much at the hands of injudicious admirers, and the "People's Tribute" to Lord Beaconsfield organized by an amiable enthusiast, heavily weighted by the unpropitious name of Tracy Turnerelli, must have been a sore trial to the Premier, while it supplied Punch with food for mirth for the best part of a year. The subscriptions of the million were invited to purchase a gold wreath, but after a little while Mr. Turnerelli had to appeal for further funds to clear off a deficit. Later on, when the Tribute had been finally refused by Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Turnerelli offered to hand over the wreath to one of our great national museums, if a suitable case were provided. He also suggested that he might be reimbursed for his out-of-pocket expenses in getting up the Tribute. Punch recommended that he should pocket the affront and hand over the "Tribute" to Madame Tussaud's, where he had already appeared in wax. This is what actually happened, and in November, 1879, Punch sardonically records the fulfilment of his suggestion.

The disquieting news from the Afghan frontier led to a serious attack on the Government early in 1880, an attack in which Punch vigorously joined, publishing a list of questions all animated by misgiving and by distrust of Lord Beaconsfield's phrases and Lord Lytton's policy and silence. The tension was relieved by Lord Roberts' famous march to Kandahar, and on his return to England in the autumn Punch represented him as snowed under by invitations to complimentary banquets, and invoked the shade of Wellington to congratulate him on his celerity. Meanwhile, however, Parliament had been dissolved in March, and the verdict of 1874 completely reversed at the General Election. Punch hailed Gladstone triumphing with his axe over Lord Dalkeith, and borne aloft on a shield by Harcourt, Hartington, and Bright, under the heading, "Hail to the Chief." As a pendant we have the cartoons in which Lord Beaconsfield is eclipsed by the sun of Liberalism or watches the sinking of the sun of Popularity, and the verses in which the parting Sphinx soliloquizes on his methods of leadership – appeals to sentiment and passion and the deft use and reiteration of phrases which intoxicate the masses.

When the House reassembled, it was to find the Irish Question still further complicated by the activities of the Land League and the No Rent Campaign. There was also another burning question – that of the Parliamentary Oath – which the return of Mr. Bradlaugh made a matter of urgency. Punch, as the "sturdiest of Protestants, was perforce the staunch supporter of the right of private judgment which is the corner-stone of Protestantism." Also he frankly admitted that he had no desire to see Mr. Bradlaugh made a martyr. His point of view is developed with refreshing common sense in the following argument: —