The _Daily Mail_, which had anticipated a Unionist victory at the polls, now espoused the cause of the "Middle-Class Serf," taxed and rated and bled beyond endurance "in the interests of the most pampered section of the community the labouring man," and rumours of the formation of a new political body, with a view to obtaining justice and recognition, impelled _Punch_ to indulge in a forecast, half sympathetic, half sceptical, of "The Turning of the Middle-Class Worm":-- England, be warned! The time for patience passes; You are more near the eve Of a revolt among the Middle Classes Than you perhaps believe; Worn to a thread by Labour's licensed plunder Of what poor desultory pay they earn, Can anybody reasonably wonder These worms should turn? In 1897 _Punch_ had resented Government interference with the management of workhouses, and fell foul of the Local Government Board when a Board of Guardians in Lincolnshire were asked to make a return of the number of currants put into the children's puddings. Ten years later the ground of this complaint had shifted; and the administrative scandals which _Punch_ assails in 1907 are ascribed to the extravagance of Labour Guardians. Poplar is described as "the Pauper's Paradise"; and the new Bumbledom is shown, in a perversion of the scene from "Oliver Twist," "asking for more," while the miserable ratepayer ladles out champagne-cup for its refreshment. The "latest excursion" is "A day in Profuse Poplar," the lair of the "Gorgeous Guardians." The Workmen's Compensation Act is treated as a set-off to the Prevention of Corruption Act, aimed at the abuse of secret commissions, and a butler is shown reassuring a cook and advising her how to get her own back by a carefully contrived accident. The same spirit is revealed in the picture of the workman whose innocence has been outraged by someone who said he had seen him hurry: "I _never_ 'urry." To this year belongs the farcical suggestion of a Society to Protect Employers, for the special benefit of persons who were afraid of their servants and had not the courage to dismiss them. _Punch_ was nearer the mark in his illustrations of the popular prejudice against the Army. A football enthusiast at a match commiserates "silly people who mess about with a rifle on Saturday afternoons"; and a "Spartan mother" standing at a barrack gate, uplifts her voice in thankfulness that her Bill "isn't wasting his time drilling," while Bill is shown in an inset engrossed in the contemplation of a pot of beer. [Illustration: HECKLING THOMAS: "D'yer mean ter say if yer 'ad two 'osses yer'd give me one?" SOCIALIST: "Cert'nly." H. T.: "And if yer 'ad two cows, yer'd give me one?" S.: "'Course I would!" H. T.: "An' if yer 'ad two pigs?" S.: "Wot yer talkin' about? I've _got_ two pigs!"]