Our prophetic instinct enables us to foresee that the British Aristocracy of the future will consist of two distinct parties--not the Tories and the Whigs--but _the handsome people_ and _the clever people_. The former will be the highly developed descendants of the athletes and the beauties, the splendid cricketers and lawn tennis players of our day. The latter will be the offspring, not of modern æsthetes--oh, dear, no! but of a tougher and more prolific race, one that hasteth not, nor resteth; and for whom there is a good time coming. The above design is intended to represent a fashionable gathering at Lord Zachariah Mosely's, let us say, in the year two thousand and whatever-you-like. N.B.--The happy thought has just occurred to His Lordship that a fusion of the two parties into one by means of intermarriage, would conduce to their mutual welfare and to that of their common progeny.] [Sidenote: _Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns_] In illustrating the falling away of the titled classes from the maxim _noblesse oblige_ on its physical side, Du Maurier occupied an exceptional position on _Punch_; but he was not less active than other artists and writers in exposing the "moral and intellectual damage" which they inflicted on the community. In 1878 the vogue of "Fancy Fairs" evokes a vigorous protest against the vanity, bad taste, forwardness and free-and-easiness of society women who made themselves cheap in order to sell dear to 'Arries. From this date onwards the vagaries of Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns, in whom Du Maurier incarnated all the pushfulness of the thrusting woman of fashion, are a constant source of entertainment. One of her earliest exploits as a Lion-hunter was to invite Monsieur de Paris to one of her receptions. Her husband thought she meant the Comte de Paris, but she speedily undeceives him. It was the headsman she was pursuing, not the Prince. "All the world" came, but the faithless executioner went to visit the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's instead! Later on, as the social mentor, guide, philosopher and friend of Lady Midas, we find her warning her pupil against inviting the aristocracy to meet each other. A music-hall celebrity must be provided as a "draw," and Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns recommends Nellie Micklemash and her banjo. "She is not respectable, but she is amusing, and that is everything." So when the Tichborne Claimant was released in 1884, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns contemplates inviting him to dinner: "Surely there are still _some_ decent people who would like to meet him." Elsewhere and in more serious vein _Punch_ denounces the undue publicity given to this impostor's movements in the Press--one leading paper having stultified itself by condemning the practice in a leading article and simultaneously publishing an advertisement of the Claimant's appearance at a music-hall. This dualism, however, was no monopoly of the 'eighties and has become common form in the Georgian Press.