The fervid Radicalism of _Punch's_ earlier years had always been tempered by a distrust of "agitators" and socialistic experiments. It is impossible to deny that, in the period under review in this volume, this distrust gained in force if not in vehemence. There is nothing so bitter as the sketch of the delegate which appeared in the days of Douglas Jerrold (see Vol. I, p. 50), but the general attitude of the paper to the working man is decidedly less sympathetic. This change can be illustrated negatively as well as positively; less space is devoted to "the people," and more to "Society"--though in many cases it is suburban society--and to the middle classes. The references to Labour exhibit an increasing tendency to criticize and denounce trade union tyranny, socialistic legislation, the improvidence and extravagance of highly paid workmen, and "ergophobia" (as _Punch_ academically calls work-shyness)--a habit which he describes as early as 1892 as "the new employment of being 'unemployed.'" Yet if _Punch_ was increasingly critical of Labour--organized Labour--he was very far from being a thick-and-thin champion of Capital. Greedy employers and directors are never spared. The agricultural depression in 1892 furnishes him with the occasion for a vigorous onslaught on railway rates. Agriculture is shown as a female figure, bound hand and foot by Foreign Competition, lying prostrate on the track and about to be run down by an engine labelled Railway Rates. In 1895 the verses and cartoon inspired by lock-outs on the Clyde are equally severe on the employers. _Punch_ condemns the action of "crass and unpatriotic capital," and shows Britannia rebuking the shipbuilders who are playing into Germany's hands by assisting the growth of her navy. In 1896, under the heading of "The Millions to the Millionaires," _Punch_ takes for his text an actual appeal made by the working men of Walworth on the death of Baron Hirsch, _à propos_ of his munificent bequests to _his_ countrymen, and holds up the example for imitation. The continuance of the habit of "slumming," out of curiosity rather than good will, prompts in 1897 a satirical inversion of the organized visits to the East End. _Punch's_ "West End Exploration Agency, Ltd.," provided "Night Tours through Belgravia and Lightest London" with the purpose of proving "the depressing monotony and triviality of the existence to which Fashion's merciless decree condemns her countless thousands of white slaves."