Bidding for the Labour Vote
George Smith of Coalville
of the bargees, and was the main agent in passing a law for the registration and inspection of canal boats. In these labours he sacrificed not only his time, but his means, and Punch appealed to his readers to contribute to the support of "this practical preacher of good will to man, this friend of the friendless, this helper of those who, till he came, had none to help them."
Board-School Master: "Now then, boys, we must get to work again!"
Advanced Scholar: "Please, Sir mayn't we have somethin' to relieve the craving of 'unger fust?"
In 1881 the hard time of boys in attendance on weighing machines, said to be on duty for thirteen or fourteen hours a day, aroused Punch's sympathy and ire. Invention, however, rather than philanthropy, furnished a remedy in the "automatics."
In the same year Punch's appeal for the fund to provide poor children with country holidays, embodied in "The Children's Cry," enabled him to forward £280 to the promoters. In 1885 the "almost formidable success" achieved by the experiment of Poor Children's Play-Rooms, in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, delighted his heart. In 1888, Punch , in "Cramming versus 'Clemming'" emphasizes the need of providing free meals for poor children. At the very end of the period under review in this volume I have come across a notice of a book purporting to show up the cruelties practised on young people and animals in training them for acrobatic performances. The book was poor as literature, but if true called for searching inquiry. Children have, we may safely assume, been long safeguarded from the mishandling alleged to have been possible in 1892; but at the moment of writing these lines August 11, 1921 an inquiry is being held into the treatment of animals by showmen and conjurers.
Nor was Punch less concerned with the conditions of women workers. In his "Dream of Fair Women " suggested by factory inspectors' reports in 1875, he points to lack of combination among women as the incentive to slave-driving on the part of "foggers." He prefaces a set of verses in October with a passage from a Report on the Black Country:
The women are said to take the place of fathers as well as husbands, while the men are idle and drunken At Bromsgrove I heard also of the growing custom of idle, lazy young lads looking out for skilled industrious wives, in order to obtain an easy life.PunchMen, Women and Dogs
Farmer's Daughter: "I say, Jem, fancy! Mother said to me to-day I was to help in the Dairy, and might help in the Milking! Because she did when she was a Girl! I said I'd go for a Gov'ness first!"
There is little mention of the hardships of life on the land, though labourers' wages were still very low; but the rise of the farmer class to "gentility" is noted in 1885 in the picture of the farmer's daughter seated at the piano and declaring that she would rather go as a governess than help in the dairy. Punch's sympathies were more readily enlisted on behalf of shop and saloon girls. The movement began in Bristol in 1876, where a number of ladies issued a circular to employers asking that chairs should be provided for shop girls; the plan was adopted in Manchester, and, following the lead of Lancashire, Punch repeatedly urges the plea for more considerate treatment. The matter was "beyond a joke," and Punch recommended ladies to patronize shops where they were allowed, and boycott others. The subject was taken up by the Lancet , and the movement spread to Scotland,