Disraeli's sumptuous upholstery, which Thackeray was so fond of burlesquing, is occasionally apparent in _Sybil_, though one must not forget his own explanation: "I write in irony, and they call it bombast." For the rest the pictures of life in the agricultural and industrial districts, the squalid wretchedness of cellar and hovel, the evils of the truck system and the "tommy-shop" were never more luridly painted by any Chartist writer than by Disraeli in _Sybil_. The details are not exaggerated; they are borne out by sober historians such as S. R. Gardiner in describing the conditions in Manchester, Bethnal Green and Dorsetshire. Disraeli's inability to reproduce the speech of artisans or peasants correctly is a negligible matter. He never made a systematic tour in the slums as Lord Ashley did in preparation for his campaign on behalf of Ragged Schools; he was not a literary realist; but here he was in touch with realities, and we have his own word for it that he wrote from personal observation. The heroes of the book are all on the side of reform; Gerard, the people's leader; St. Lys, the humanitarian parson; Egremont, an aristocrat converted from indifference by contact with the poor; and the martyrs are the victims of the existing system, agricultural labourers on 8s. a week and starving hand-loom weavers. Disraeli has no use for the Lord Marneys and de Mowbrays who complacently acquiesced in the serfdom of the slaves in smock-frocks or even denied that they were badly off. They were not a real aristocracy, a "corporation of the best and bravest," in Carlyle's phrase. But for reasons already given _Punch_ was not prepared to accept Disraeli as an ally. He was too useful as a butt for satire and ridicule, and his oriental personality was antipathetic to _Punch's_ eminently British mind. Moreover, in justice to _Punch_ it must be admitted that there were real divergences. Disraeli opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, though he lived to describe Protection as dead and damned. The readjustment of the "Two Nations" which, as a leader of the "Young England" movement, he proposed for the remedy and removal of the distress and tumult and anger of the Hungry 'Forties, involved in his view the strengthening of the Sovereign and the maintenance of the leadership of the aristocracy. They were to be awakened to their responsibilities and duties, but not shorn of their rights and privileges. _Punch_ was a thoroughgoing Free Trader and Corn Law Repealer, a believer in measures rather than men, an unsparing critic of Kings and Courts, and whenever he saw an aristocratic head, inclined to hit it. "Young England" only served as a target for satire; _Punch_ refused to recognize the genuine idealism by which the best of the group were animated. But, as one of their defenders has admitted, they were not a real Party, and were concerned with principles rather than specific measures of reform. Idealism which stopped short of immediate