Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 1 (of 4).—1841-1857Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
History
Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 1 (of 4).—1841-1857
Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901 -- Humor
_Punch's_ attentive study of the curiosities of literature in
advertisements relating to education continued for many years. A batch
of them extracted from _The Times_ appears in the issue of August 14,
1853, and pillories the meanness of ladies who wished to secure
governesses without salaries, or, as an alternative, to turn their
houses into boarding schools and get assistants without paying for them.
Already, some three weeks earlier, _Punch_ had quoted from _The Times_
the advertisement of an academy for young gentlemen near Richmond, in
Yorkshire, where youths were "boarded, furnished with books, and
instructed in whatever their future prospects might require for twenty
and twenty-two guineas a year. No vacations unless desired." On this
"Dotheboys Hall" in real life _Punch_ observes that while such a price
for a year's food for mind and body is a miracle of cheapness, "the age
of miracles has passed, and especially--after the publication of
_Nicholas Nickleby_--of such miracles as this." Yet an advertisement of
a school in Essex on almost precisely similar lines survived for at
least forty years after _Punch's_ protest, as the present writer can
testify. Nor were the claims of the underpaid official forgotten. In his
"Penny Post Medal" _Punch_ endeavoured to illustrate the triumph of
Rowland Hill, and waxed lyrical over his achievement, indignant over his
treatment:--
Beautiful, much more beautiful, to the eye of the philosopher
_Punch_, is the red coat of the Postman with his bundle of penny
missives than the scarlet coat of the Life Guardsman! For the
Postman is the soldier of peace--the humanizing, benevolent
distributor of records of hopes, affections, tenderest
associations. He is the philanthropic go-between--the cheap and
constant communicant betwixt man and man.
[Illustration: ROWLAND HILL'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO ST.
MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND]
[Sidenote: _Rowland Hill's Reward_]
In the Penny Post Medal _Punch_ has endeavoured to show the triumph
of Rowland Hill--no Greek or Roman triumph e'er so great--carried
in well-earned glory into the Post-office, Saint Martin's-le-Grand.
If the beholder have any imagination, he will hear huzzaing
shouts--he will hear all the street-door knockers of the kingdom
for that moment instinct with joyous life, loudly knock, knock,
knocking in thundering accord. Such is the triumph of Rowland Hill.
Turn we to the Obverse. It shows an old story; old as the
ingratitude of man--old as the Old Serpent. Sir Robert Peel, the
Tory Minister, no sooner gets into place than, in reward for the
services of Mr. Rowland Hill, he turns him from the Post Office!
or as it is allegorically shown, he, as Britannia, presents him
with--the sack.
After this, a subscription is set afoot to which Sir Robert, with
Magdalen penitence, subscribes ten pounds! Ten Pounds! It must be
owned a very small plaister to heal so cruel a cut!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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