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In the 'thirties and 'forties the triumphs of applied science and invention had already begun to exert an immediate and far-reaching influence on national prosperity and the economics of industrialism. The views on the new order expressed in Punch reflect, with certain variations, the enlightened moderation of the class of which he was the spokesman. The coming of the age of steam and machinery is welcomed, or accepted, with a tempered optimism. He approaches the subject mainly as a critic or a satirist zealous for reform. But on two notable occasions he assumes the rôle of philosopher and prophet. The first was in January, 1842, à propos of a remark made by Sir Robert Peel that increased demand for manufactures would only increase machine-power:—
Machinery, in its progress, has doubtless been the origin of terrible calamity; it has made the strong man so much live lumber. But as we cannot go back, and must go on, it is for statesmen and philosophers to prepare for the crisis as surely coming as the morning light. How, when machinery is multiplied—as it will be—a thousandfold? How, when tens of thousand-thousand hands are made idle by the ingenuity of the human mind? How, when, comparatively speaking, there shall be no labour for man? Will the multitude lie down and, unrepining, die? We think not—we are sure not. Then will rise—and already we hear the murmur—a cry, a shout for an adjustment of interests; a shout that, hard as it is, will strike upon the heart of Mammon, and make the spoiler tremble.
We put this question to Sir Robert Peel: if all labour done by man were suddenly performed by machine power, and that power in the possession of some thousand individuals—what would be the cry of the rest of the race? Would not the shout be, "Share, share"?
The steam-engine, despite of themselves, must and will carry statesmen back to first principles. As it is, machinery is a fiend to the poor; the time will come when it will be a beneficent angel.
RAILWAY MAP OF ENGLAND (A PROPHECY)
The Impudence of Steam
On the second occasion, in May, 1844, the note struck in the last sentence is sounded more hopefully. In a fantasy entitled "The May Day of Steam," the writer notes the passing of the old May Day and foreshadows Labour's appropriation of that festival; and a speech is put into the mouth of a working man prophesying the ultimate unmitigated good of invention, though its first operation created great inequality and caused misery to the hand-worker. But for the most part Punch is concerned with the dangers and discomforts of the new method of locomotion and the wild speculation to which it gave rise. Railway directors were to him anathema. In his first volume Punch sturdily declares that "the best thing to do for poor Earth to protect her Would be to hang daily a railway director," and of his many railway cartoons perhaps the most effective is that which represents a director sitting on the front buffers of an engine as the best remedy for collisions. The "Impudence of Steam" is satirized in some prophetic verses, one couplet of which is still often quoted:—
"Ease her, stop her!"
"Any gentleman for Joppa?"
"'Mascus, 'Mascus?" "Tickets, please, sir."
"Tyre or Sidon?" "Stop her, ease her!"
"Jerusalem, 'lem, 'lem!" "Shur! Shur!"
"Do you go on to Egypt, sir?"
"Captain, is this the land of Pharaoh?"
"Now look alive there! Who's for Cairo?"
"Back her!" "Stand clear, I say, old file!"
"What gent or lady's for the Nile,"
"Or Pyramids?" "Thebes! Thebes! Sir!" "Steady!"
"Now, where's that party for Engedi?"
Pilgrims holy, Red Cross Knights,
Had ye e'er the least idea,
Even in your wildest flights,
Of a steam trip to Judea?
What next marvel Time will show
It is difficult to say,
"'Bus," perchance, to Jericho,
"Only sixpence all the way."
Cabs in Solyma may fly;
'Tis a not unlikely tale:
And from Dan the tourist hie
Unto Beersheba by "rail."
But the miseries and discomforts of railway travelling are dwelt on far more frequently than its prospective delights. The first-class alone was endurable, and that was grossly overcharged: the rest had to put up with overcrowding, discomfort, draughts, hard seats, smoke, dust and dirt. Third-class passengers were negligible and contemptible folk; neither punctuality nor civility was to be expected.
In 1845 the railway mania becomes acute—a "universal epidemic." George Hudson, the Railway King, looms large in the public eye; and Punch expresses his dissatisfaction with M.P.s for dabbling in speculation which they have themselves the opportunity of unduly favouring. Burlesques of various railway projects—centrifugal and atmospheric—abound. Punch ridicules the idea of a railway in the Isle of Wight as unnecessary and calculated to spoil the "Garden of England." The menace to the rural and pastoral amenities of the countryside moves him to eloquent protest. The sufferings of M.P.s before Railway Committees are set forth in the parody of Tennyson's "Mariana in the Moated Grange"; the golden harvest reaped by expert engineering witnesses is resentfully acknowledged; "Jeames" has not escaped the infection and appears frequently as speculator, "stag," and dupe. The Battle of the Gauges had been joined, and Punch asserts that the largest entry in the "railway returns" was that recording the casualties. The Unicorn in the Royal Arms is explained as the "Stag" of railway speculation, and a design of a railway lunatic asylum is submitted as the most appropriate terminus for many of the new schemes. The protests of fox-hunters, noted by Punch, recall the verses of the Cheshire poet:—
Let the steam pot
Hiss till it's hot,
But give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot.
THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845
The mania was not confined to men: Punch satirizes the ladies who were "stagging it" under the heading "A Doe in the City," and suggests a Joint Stock Railway Workhouse as the natural and fitting end of all these operations. This idea is further developed in "Jaques in Capel Court," a parody which begins:—
All the world are stags!
Yea, all the men and women merely jobbers—
and after enumerating the various phases of the mania, concludes:—
Last scene of all,
That ends this sad but common history,
Is Union pauperism and oakum-picking:
Sans beer, sans beef, sans tea, sans everything.
Railway titles, a railway peerage and Parliament are foreshadowed, with King Hudson, "the monarch of all they 'survey,'" installed in his palace at Hampton Court. The relations of John Bull—on whom "the sweet simplicity of the three per cents." had begun to pall—with humbugging promoters is hit off in the stanza:—
Said John, "Your plan my mind contents,
I'm sick and tired of Three per Cents.;
And don't get enough by my paltry rents"—
So he got hooked in by the railway "gents."
KING HUDSON'S LEVÉE