The Trade Union Congress at Plymouth in the same year censured Lord Mount Edgcumbe because, in throwing open his grounds to them, he had reserved the privacy of his lawn for a garden party. _Punch_ accordingly indulged in some sarcastic verses, supposed to be written by a Trade Unionist, and ironically applauding the action of Mr. Ben Tillett, who had distinguished himself by his attack on Lord Mount Edgcumbe. This was fair game enough, though to-day it would probably have been passed over in silence. _Punch_ no doubt was thinking of the saying that an Englishman's house is his castle; and hardly anticipated the time when an Englishman's or an English nobleman's castle would cease to be his home. To-day we read with an amused surprise _Punch's_ comment in 1900 on the introduction of an eight-hours' day for domestics in Australia, and his forecast of a similar state of affairs in England under a new Patriarchal Statute. Nor is there anything wildly extravagant in his ironical anticipation of the cook of the future demanding £100 wages, though unable to guarantee more in return than "chop one day and steak the next." The higher education of servants, according to _Punch_, was tending to produce a type which knew everything except the things which really mattered. He tells us in 1902 of a lady who was delighted to get a cook who could develop her photographs, and gives us, in the same year, an excellent study (after Gilbert) of the "Up-to-date Cook-General":-- I am the very pattern of an up-to-date cook-general, I've information vegetable, animal and mineral; I've passed the seventh standard, and I vary the monotony Of flirting with the butcher's boy by writing books on botany. I know the chemistry of zinc, tin, potash and ammonium; I practise on the fiddle, flute, piano and harmonium; I understand minutely the formation of an icicle, And in the season round the Park I like to ride my bicycle. I've studied Herbert Spencer and I've views on sociology, And as a mere _parergon_ I have taken up conchology-- In short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral, I am the very model of an up-to-date cook-general. In fact, when I have learnt to tell a turnip from an artichoke, Or grill a steak that will not make my mistress's dinner-party choke; When I can cook a mutton chop or any plain comestible In such a way that it becomes not wholly indigestible; When I can wash a cup without inevitably breaking it, Or make a bed where folk can sleep at ease without remaking it; In short, when I've an inkling of economy domestical, You'll say, "Of all cook-generals this girl the very best I call." For my culinary ignorance and all-round imbecility Is only to be equalled by my housewifely futility-- But still, in learning vegetable, animal and mineral, I am the very pattern of an up-to-date cook-general. [Sidenote: _The Aristocrats of Labour_]