The change in _Punch's_ views on the claims of Labour, especially organized labour, has already been sufficiently illustrated. But it did not prevent his espousing the cause of workers where the conditions were bad, the hours long and the pay inadequate. _Punch's_ protracted campaign against the organ grinders was no doubt to a considerable extent due to Leech's sensitive nerves, and to sympathy with brain-workers such as Babbage, the mathematician, who declared that "one quarter of his entire working power had been destroyed by audible nuisances," but his support of Mr. Bass's Bill in 1864 was largely based on the fact that the business was conducted by undesirable aliens, and that the Italian _padrone_ was an employer of sweated labour. In 1871 there is a cartoon satirizing the strong measures taken by the police against a demonstration of child match-makers at a time when adult agitators were allowed to preach Revolution and Communism in Hyde Park, and in the same year and month, when a post-mistress was convicted of theft and forgery, the evil is traced to the temptation to which underpaid officials were subjected. _Punch_ had already predicted that in any national emergency the patriotism of the mercantile marine could be implicitly relied on, a prophecy splendidly realized in the Great War, and in 1873 he lent a vigorous helping hand to Samuel Plimsoll in his campaign against the "Coffin-Ships":-- Let horrified shipowners never so oft His charges, indignant, fling back, I call him the cherub who sits up aloft To keep watch for the life of Poor Jack! [Illustration: THE COFFIN-SHIPS POLLY: "Oh, dear Jack! I can't help crying, but I'm so happy to think you're not going in one of those _dreadful ships_!" JACK: "What, Davy Jones's decoy ducks! No, no, lass--never more. Thanks to our friend Master Plimsoll, God bless him!"] Simultaneously _Punch_ printed a cartoon assuming that "Jack" would never again be sent to sea in one of "Davy Jones's decoy ducks." This was rather premature, as Plimsoll's campaign to secure the compulsory load-line which began in 1870, and in which he showed more zeal than discretion, did not lead to legislation until 1876. But with all his faults Plimsoll earned his title of "The Sailor's Friend" and justified _Punch's_ salutation. THE CHURCHES