The offenders here castigated are young men, but the ladies excelled in the new greeting. Languor was the distinguishing note of the young men of fashion in the 'eighties and 'nineties. It was the age of the "masher"--dreadful word--of the "Johnnie" and the "Chappie." In 1883 _Punch_ published a poem entitled "Child Chappie's Pilgrimage," a modern Rake's Progress. Later on he satirized the studied imbecility of deportment of young dandies entering a ballroom as "The Earlswood Totter." Students of slang will note with interest the emergence of the word "bounder" in the year 1887. _Punch's_ verses on the type thus designated indicate a much harsher view than now prevails. Nowadays we admit that a "bounder," though socially "impossible," may be a "stout fellow." _Punch's_ portrait, in which the "bounder" is represented as a bilker and a blackmailer, corresponds with the "cad" in the worst sense which we now attribute to that word. Mention has been made of the decline of the _chaperon_. Here _Punch_ virtually sides with the "little flirt" who boldly enunciates the doctrine that "in future a girl is her own chaperon." At the same time he clearly disapproved of the new habit of dispensing with introductions, and its logical outcome, satirized in one of Du Maurier's most graceful pictures--entertainments at which the hostess was ignorant of the very names of her guests. [Illustration: MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS SUSCEPTIBLE YOUTH: "Would you present Me to that Young Lady with the Black Fan?" HOSTESS: "With pleasure, if you will tell me her Name--and Yours!"] The Roller-Skating craze, which attained the dimensions of an epidemic in 1875 and 1876, is treated by _Punch_ rather as a form of social recreation fraught with matrimonial possibilities than an athletic pastime. The year 1876 was also noteworthy for an epidemic of Fancy Dress Balls and Spelling Bees. The latter were never popular in Mayfair; spelling had never been a strong point with the British aristocracy. But in less exalted circles Spelling Bees flourished exceedingly for a while, and the prizes awarded may well have conduced to an improvement in the orthography of the upper middle classes. _Punch's_ references to the craze are copious. It may suffice, however, to quote his "Dream of a Spelling-Bee," an engaging piece of dictionary-made nonsense verse:-- Menageries where sleuth-hounds caracole, Where jaguar phalanx and phlegmatic gnu Fright ptarmigan and kestrels cheek by jowl With peewit and precocious cockatoo: Gaunt seneschals, in crochety cockades, With seine-nets trawl for porpoise in lagoons; While scullions gauge erratic escapades Of madrepores in water-logged galleons: Flamboyant triptychs groined with gherkins green, In reckless fracas with coquettish bream, Ecstatic gurgoyles, with grotesque chagrin, Garnish the gruesome nightmare of my dream! [Sidenote: _Suburban Sentiment_]