_Punch's_ commendation rather declines in dignity in the last stanza. But we are hardly prepared for his condemnation of women doctors in 1852 merely on the illogical ground that they were unfitted to walk the hospitals or use the scalpel. The better training of nurses had been urged before the days of Florence Nightingale; _Punch_ appreciated the gossiping humours of Mrs. Gamp, but he was very far from regarding her as a ministering angel. To the "strong-minded female," however, he had a strong antipathy, and in his pictures rather ungenerously emphasized the unloveliness, even the scragginess, of the advocates of women's rights. The famous Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a vigorous suffragist and temperance reformer, but _Punch_ was only concerned with her campaign on behalf of "trouserloons." "Bloomers" were a constant theme of comment in pantomime librettos; they were adopted by some barmaids; and a "Bloomer Ball" was actually held in the year 1851. This earliest form of "rational" dress for women was, however, banned by Mayfair. The divided skirt, many years later, was more fortunate in having a Viscountess for its chief advocate. _Punch_ is not only concerned with feminine dress-vagaries. He makes a semi-frivolous suggestion of the appointment of a Poetess Laureate, and the "Letters from Mary Ann," though they form a new departure and indicate an increased readiness to treat the claims of women from the women's point of view, cannot be regarded as a whole-hearted contribution to the cause. Women were already knocking at the door of other professions. In 1855 we find references to ladies at the Bar in America and women preachers in Methodist chapels in England. The first Exhibition of Women Artists is noticed in July, 1857. _Punch's_ anticipation of women policemen in 1851 was probably prompted not by a desire to see the innovation realized, but merely served as a means of guying bloomerism. The female omnibus conductor is another piece of unconscious prophecy, as she was imaginatively represented as being in charge of 'buses for ladies only, to relieve male passengers from the pressure of voluminous dresses and redundant parcels. But while _Punch_ was an opponent of woman suffrage and, at best, a lukewarm supporter of woman's demand for professional employment, he was--as we have shown in other sections of this survey--at least a persistent advocate of the reform of the Divorce Laws--and unwearied in his exposure of the hardships and sufferings of underpaid governesses, sweated sempstresses, and women-workers generally. Brutal assaults on women were, in his view, altogether inadequately punished by fine. He was alive to their wrongs if not to their "rights," and the sneers of some of his contemporaries at the Women's Petition in 1856 moved him to indignation:-- THE CRY OF THE WOMEN