Punch: Punch (32.1857)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [May 2, 1857.

178

TERRIBLE APPARITION !!!

seen in front of the junior united service club.

THE SOCIAL TREAD-MILL.

No. 1.

" No, Mr. Punch, I can bear it no longer! I have suffered so much—
I see so many around me suffering like myself. Whenever I broach
the subject, I find such a store of smouldering discontent, that
I feel certain, if I do not find a weekly vent-hole in your columns, we
shall have a frightful catastrophe some day, Yes, Sir, Society is like
.Tames the First's Parliament-House. It is undermined; there are
gunpowder-barrels piled, and faggots stacked; all that is wanted is a
Guy Eawkes with his lantern and brimstone-matches. I propose to
bring out the powder, barrel by barrel,—to unstack the faggots, and
separate the sticks. Then we may safely use the one in bringing
down our game in a sportsmanlike fashion, and the other in roasting
scientifically what otherwise, sooner or later, must have been bar-
barously blown up. Excuse this excited and figurative introduction of
my subject. Strong feelings, long pent up, cannot be discharged
without considerable recod and concussion. If I am flurried, consider
that the silent sufferings of thousands are about to find a mouth-
piece in me. I labour, like the Pythoness, because, like her, I am
about to be oracular.

"A reference to the title of this paper will indicate the motive of this
somewhat incoherent preface.

"Sir, I am a married man—a householder of the middle class—nearer,
perhaps, to its upper than its under stratum—living in London, dis-
charging, I can honestly say, my duty to my family, to the utmost of
my power, and paying rates and taxes with a punctuality which quite
affects the tax-gatherer and rate-collector of my district.

" My wife is an excellent woman, not less anxious to do her duty in
her sphere than I will make bold to say I am in mine. Our children
are healthy and promising, our circumstances unembarrassed, our
tempers even, our income sufficient for our wants, and our expect-
ations, on both sides, by no means to be sneezed at.

" And yet I am a sufferer—a sufferer in so many ways, that I hardly
know with which kind of suffering to begin this out-pouring.

" Sm, I am one of the Millions condemned, for no Crime,
to the Social Tread-mill!

" The Tread-mill! Why not the crank, the pillory, the press, the
rack, the thumbscrew, the scavenger's daughter—' Little-ease' itself ?
I mean to express, by whatever image our suffering may best be
described, that I am one of the millions struggling with a host of

oppressive, costly, body-and-soul-crushing, social usages, which we
have been thrust into somehow or other, and find ourselves groaning
under, without any offence of our own. Most suffer in silence. I
have long suffered so, At last I have determined to speak—and I
know that thousands and tens of thousands will bless my cour-
ageous pen.

"Where shall I begin?

" I might take my stand on this side the very threshold of married
life—at the Wedding itself, with its absurd and costly paraphernalia
of bridesmaids, and Honiton lace, and Glace bonnets, and orange-
flower wreaths, and best Erench gloves at 2>s. 9d, sl pair. But many
may think any complaint of that part of the ceremony transacted in
church indecorous. Though why people should not, go quietly to
church, with two or three of their best friends, male and female,,
neatly and chastely dressed, and there — stripping off as much as may
be of our tailorings, and getting down as well as we can from our
social stilts—kneel humbly to take upon them those life-long vows—
the crown of manhood and womanhood—I, for one, never could see.

There is a demand for simplicity in funerals; why not in mar-
riages ? We are not more equal beside the grave than before the altar.
The parson who consigns dust to dust, and the parson who joins man
and wife together, equally consecrate a common lot of humanity.

" I protest against the vanity and ostentation which wait upon us,
on our entrance into wedlock—the hired broughams, and the wedding-
favours, and the fashionable church, and the team of parsons—the gor-
geousness of the bride and the bridesmaids—the glossy newness of the'
wretched bridegroom. It's all wrong. How dare we set about what
should be the most serious and awful act of our lives—I protest there-
to no act of our lives so solemn except death—all varnished and rouged
and masked and 'got up ?' Marriage, as it is, is led up to by alto-
gether too gay and glittering a " kQ/xos "—or revel-rout. It would be
better to approach the altar with seriousness at least, if not with some
sadness ; above all, we should utterly repudiate that pretentious show,
above our means aud unbefitting our stations, with which most of us
flaunt and swagger into holy matrimony.

" Sir, when I was married, I was a bolder man than I am now. The
social irons had not entered into my soul. I protested then, as I do
now, against the cost and display and uncomfortable splendour of the
marriage ceremony. But I did more. I carried my protest into act.
My wife had been peculiarly brought up, and luckily, thought as I did.
Her Mamma, and all her relations, I am thankful to say, were at a
distance. Mine were eccentric people. We were married quietly at
Kensington Church. We had only one brougham, which was not
hired—but a friend's. My wife and three of my dearest women-friends
(they have been my wife's best friends ever since) went in the brougham.
I followed in a cab, with two of my man-friends. My wife wore a
Erench grey chalis dress, and a pretty little straw bonnet with white
ribbons. 1 had on the blue coat which I had mounted a year before
for my friend Blazer's marriage—Blazer did the thing handsomely;^
was turned off at St. James's, with coaches, favours, bridesmaids, glace
bonnets, Honiton lace, orange flowers, best Erench gloves, mother-in-
law,—in short, with all the obligato accompaniments. It was only
by the passionate persuasion of the friend who acted'Eather'on the
occasion—he was married, and a miserable grinder on the social mill
already—that I was induced to purchase a pair of white gloves, which
I did at the haberdasher's nearest the church.

" So we were married. It was cheap—it was snug—it was of apiece
with our daily existence. We did not roll into wedded life on a grand
triumphal chariot, with eight horses, to come down to a tax-cart
immediately after. We began our journey, Darby and Joan fashion,
in the tax-cart. Would that I could always be allowed to tool that
humble but easy-hung vehicle ! But alas, the gig of respectability is
every now and then driven to the door, and one must mount, under
heavy penalties, leaving the cozy old tax-cart in the stable-yard. But
the gig of respectabflity is bearable. N ot so that terrible, black, dreary,
stifling prison-van—with ' Society' painted in blazing capitals on the
panels. Against compulsory riding in that odious vehicle, I mean
to protest as vehemently as you will permit me. To that end I send you
this groan, the forerunner of many more, should this awake an
echo. I doubt not it will awake thousands, on the part of those who
would be but too ready to sign themselves as I do,

"A Sufferer."

"P.S. I have not yet done with the penal accompaniments of wed-
lock. I have much'to say on the subject of wedding breakfasts, but
they deserve an extra groan to themselves."

Oude Among the Shoe-Blacks.

The Queen of Oude and the Princes have given £10 to the East
London Shoe-Black brigade. This donation, it is said, was made by
our Eastern visitors in recollection of what His Majesty of Oude had
obtained of the East India Company: they having fiist blackened
him so thickly before they finally polished him off.