_Punch_ expressed righteous indignation at the "generosity" with which an appreciative Government and a grateful Public were accustomed to requite the services of medical men. But the disparities of which Mr. Davy legitimately complained were nothing to those which have been common of late years. In 1920 the demonstrators in science at Oxford were getting just about the same pay as the Oxford road-sweepers. Attempts to disparage the social status of doctors were invariably resented by _Punch_, and when, in November, 1880, the Bishop of Liverpool, in a speech to medical men, observed "I am not ashamed to say I have a son a doctor," _Punch_ promptly retorted in the following epigram:-- How kind of the Bishop, and how patronizing, And yet to his _Punch_ 'tis a little surprising, That speaking to medical men there in session, He dared speak of shame and a noble profession. A Bishop looks after our souls, but how odd is The sneer that's implied at the curers of bodies. For surely it would be no hard task to fish up, A hundred brave Doctors as good as the Bishop. [Sidenote: _Cremation and Comprehension_] _Punch_, it will be remembered, had been a caustic critic of medical students of the Bob Sawyer type in the 'forties. But he made his _amende_ handsomely in 1886, when he acknowledged the change in the type and contrasted the serious and frugal modern student with the rowdy, bibulous sawbones of forty years before. Of irregular practitioners _Punch_ had always been a hostile critic, and even the orthodox members of the profession did not always escape a certain amount of genial satire, as when, in 1886, an eminent physician, feeling ill, declines to call in any doctor because "we all go in for thinking each other such humbugs." In this context it may be permissible to add to what has already been said on the subject of cremation, and _Punch's_ support of Sir Henry Thompson, that in 1874 there appeared the following mock "Grave-digger's Remonstrance" with that eminent surgeon:-- Who are you to be thieving The poor sexton's bread? How can we earn our living If you urn our dead? [Illustration: CREMATION NEPHEW: "I hope you haven't been waiting long, Uncle?" UNCLE: "All right, my boy. Been reading the paper, and had a pinch--By the by, it's queer flavoured snuff in this jar of yours, Fred." NEPHEW (aghast): "Snuff, Uncle!--Jar! Good gracious!--That's not snuff! Those are the ashes of my landlord's first wife!"] _Punch_, always a strong advocate of comprehension, saw in cremation a means of breaking down the barriers erected between conformists and nonconformists by exclusive graveyards.