"I was not prepared to find the class of parents I had to do with would apparently accept the education, but make every excuse to evade the industrial work, or keep their daughters away when it was to be done, and threaten to remove them if the household duties were required of them. In corroboration of this latter fact, I may observe that twenty-three girls have been taken away from the school expressly because they would not do the housework. Whether in the present day girls are allowed to determine for themselves what they shall or shall not do, or whether their parents are too proud to recognize such industrial work as a duty belonging to their children, it is not for me to decide. I can only act on the result, and close my school. I repeat, I should willingly have continued the plan, had I not met with discouragement and opposition from the parents." [Footnote 21: The year 1859 is regarded by constitutional historians as a turning-point in our Parliamentary history. _Punch_ mentions, amongst other things, that it was the year in which "the fashion broke out of abusing our wives for bad dinners."] But if the normal relations between mistresses and servants were becoming steadily worse, _Punch_ was far from acquitting employers. In October, 1864, the North London Working Classes Industrial Exhibition was opened--for the most part organized by working-men, though sundry rich philanthropists, including Miss Burdett-Coutts, had a hand in it. This prompted _Punch_ to describe an imaginary "Industrial Exhibition of the Aristocracy," and to describe the fictitious meeting for the Education of the Rich already referred to. His report is for the most part burlesque, but _Punch_ puts into the mouths of the speakers a good deal of shrewd satire at the expense of the folly and ignorance of rich people. "They were very ignorant, but that was the fault of their bringing up." The ex-footman, now a small-coal man, thought well of them, but they had many faults:--