Punch (99.1890)

Septbmbee 6, 1890.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

109

MODERN TYPES.

{By Mr. Punch's own Type Writer.)
No. XVIII.—THE UNDOMESTIC DAUGHTER.
The race of daughters is large, but their characteristics, vocations,
and aptitudes, are but little understood by the general public. It
is expected of them by their mothers that they should be a comfort,
by their fathers that they should be inexpensive and unlike their
brothers, and by their brothers that they should be as slaves,
submissively attached to the fraternal car of triumph. The outside
public, the mothers and fathers, that is to say, of other daughters,

sanity is to be found only on the maternal side of the family, lays
the peculiarities of her daughter to the charge of some abnormal
paternal ancestor. Having thus, by implication, cleared herself
from all responsibility, she feels that she is better able to take a
detached and impartial view of errors which, seeing they are those
of her own flesh and blood, she professes herself utterly unable to
understand or to correct.

The TJndomestic Daughter thus acquires the oonviction that she
herself is the most miserably crushed member of a down-trodden
sex. In this, and in the agreement which she exacts from two or
three melancholy friends, she seeks a solace for her sufferings.
After a time, however, she discovers that this is insufficient. It

look upon them vaguely, as mild, and colourless beings, destitute must be said to her credit that her energies find the outlet of a

alike of character, of desires and of aspirations. And it must be
said that daughters themselves, before matrimony absorbs their
daughterhood and relieves them of their mothers, seem to be in the
main content with the calm and limited existence which their
relations and the voice of tradition assign to them. Most of them after
they have passed through the flashing brilliance of their first season,
and the less radiant glow of their second, are happy enough to spend
the time that must elapse ere the destined knight shall sound the
trumpet of release at the gates of the fortress, in an atmosphere of
quiet domestic usefulness. One becomes known to fame, and her
friends, as being above all others, "such a comfort to her mother."

passive sorrow inadequate. She burns to prove that one who is
misunderstood and despised cannot only find useful work to do, but
can do it better than her humdrum domestic sisters. Unfortunately,
however, she overlooks the obvious and easy duties of her home.
She scans the remote corners of the world. Her bruised spirit
flutters about the bye-ways of charitable effort, and at length she
establishes herself as a visitor, a distributer of tracts and blankets,
and an instructor of factory girls. It is unnecessary to insist, that
these occupations are useful and praiseworthy in the abstract. It may
be doubted, however, whether they should be undertaken by one who
has to neglect for them equally neceseary but less attractive labours.

She interviews the cook, she arranges the dinners, -—---:--rrTiTiTil—iTTI The Undomestic Daughter, however, rejoices

she devises light and favourite dishes to blunt ij | j lip Jfc 111 i i ln tne performance of work, which, as it were,

the edge of paternal irritability by tickling the i; jij U1 .J§fl^s^ M! 11 i 11;: U sets a seal,to her wretchedness, and stamps her

paternal palate, she writes out invitations, pre- ' fi&ffZj1^-!--- 1 as a DeinS aPart Irom the rucli 01 her sex. She

sides at the afternoon tea-table, and, in short, now takes her meals alone, and at her own hours,

takes upon herself many of those smaller duties iK&SS^i She Pr0Dawy breakfasts at half-past seven, and

which are as last straws to the maternal back. ; hKaS&St dashes out to interview the Secretary of the

Another becomes the sworn friend and ally of Ify mItw^a Society for Improving the Cultivation of Mus-

her brothers, whom she assists in their scrapes ■Hrlv ^ **rd an4 Cress on the Desert Patches of the Mile

with a sympathy which is balm to the scraped \ jHl * Jf ■ ^n<^ -D^™''- After this she will hasten to

bouI, and. with a wisdom in counsel, which can '^E^-Jt&3 I Lambeth, in order that mothers residing in that

only spring from a deep regret at not having teeming quarter of the town may be blessed

been herself horn a boy, and capable of scrapes. JHHb with mittens and mob-ca.ps, and. returning

But there is often in families another and an ^nm^^ \ thence she devotes an hour or so to lectures

Undomestic Daughter, who aspires to be in all Mr ' «fflHSk ' wni°h are t° make her expert in tending the
things unlike the usual run of common or do- : ! Mt ' / /h™f||is 1 j ailments of humanity. Occasionally the family
mestie daughters. From an early age she will i ■!' ', kB / JhWIIh 11 It arrangements are upset, in order that she may
have been noted in the family circle for romantic !' \\ ; \\ H i i . mm m !. ! have her dinner at an hour which will make it
tendencies, which are a mockery to her Philis- ! I '!|HSijj'.i fi / ^BwY convenient to her to attend the meeting of an
tine brothers, and a reproach to her common- >]'■■;> ijHUI II j| / f JkH I i ' Ui 'li! Institute for Reading Historical Novels to Work-
place sisters. She will have elevated her father .[p• Ril'l II'/i'VJBiotI il !i - p Girls, and her father will lose all his avail-
to a lofty pinnacle of imaginative and imma- a,1' MHmMW^'- ' al3le stoolj; of good temper 011 finding that the
oulate excellence, from which a tendency to WM fBf || llflf W moments generally devoted by him to soup are
shortness of temper in matters of domestic finance W$' | ■PPWUIHlUMi! : occupied to his exclusion by the apple-tart
resulting in petty squabbles with her mother, W&JSZ^P \^BHffl provided for his busy daughter. Hence come
and an irresistible desire for after-dinner WMWSn^&p'a vQMmB. .' ' • "'0-' more storms and misunderstandings. Paternal
somnolence, will have gradually displaced him. fllHlnillk{<m lUWlUll MP ii'lf^l feet are Put down—for a time, and neglected
One after another her brothers will have been '^IfiPfH'liPW T 1 excellence pines in bed-rooms,
to her Knights of the Round Table of her--- Shortly afterwards the Undomestic Daughter

fancy, armed by her enthusiasm for impossible conflicts, of which
they themselves, absorbed as they are in the examination and
pocket-money struggles of boyhood, have no conception whatever.
The effort to plant the tree of romance in an ordinary middle-class
household was predestined to failure. Her disappointments are
constant and crushing. Desires and capacities which, with careful
nurture, might have come to a fair fruit, are chilled and nipped by
the frost of neglect and ridicule. Her mind becomes warped. The
work that is ready to her hand, the ordinary round of family tasks
and serviceableness, repels her. She turns from it with distaste, and
thus widens still more the gulf between herself and. her relatives.
Hence she is thrown back upon herself for companionship and
comfort. She dissects, for her own bitter enjoyment, her inmost
heart. She becomes the subtle analyst of her own imaginary
motives. She calls up accusing phantoms to charge her before the
bar of her conscience,_ in order that she may have the qualified
satisfaction of acquitting herself, whilst returning against her
relatives a verdict of guilty on eveTy count of the indictment. In
short, she becomes a thoroughly morbid and hysterical young woman,
suspicious, and resentful even of the sympathy which is rarely
offered to her. In the meantime, two of her younger sisters are
wooed and won in the orthodox manner by steady-going gentlemen,
of good position and prospects, The congratulations showered upon
them, and the rejoicings which attend them on their wedding days,
only serve to add melancholy to the Undomestic Daughter, who has
already begun to solace herself for her failure to attract men by the
reflection that matrimony itself is a failure, and that there are higher
and worthier things in life than the wearing of orange-blossoms, and
going-away dresses. It must be said that her parents strive with
but little vigour against their daughter's inclination. Her father
having hinted at indigestion as the cause of her unhappiness, and
finding that the hint is badly received, shrugs his inapprehensive
shoulders, and ceases to notice her. Her mother, persuaded that

discovers that nature intended her to be a hospital nurse, and she
takes advantage of a period when her mother, being occupied in
tending a younger brother through scarlatina cannot offer a deter-
mined opposition, to wring an unwilling consent from her father,
and to leave her home in order to carry out her plan. This phase,
however, does not last many weeks, and she is soon back once more
on the parental hands. Thus the years pass on, the monotony of
neglecting her home being varied by occasional outbursts of enthu-
siasm which carry her on distant expeditions in strange company.
During one of these she falls in with a lay-preacher, who to a
powerful and convincing style adds the fascination of having been
turned from an early life of undoubted dissipation. She sits at his
feet, she flatters him as only a woman can flatter a preacher, and
having eventually married him, she helps him to found a new
religion during the intervals that she can spare from the founda-
tion of a considerable family. Warned by her own experience,
she will never allow her daughters to be seen without their sewing
or their knitting. Her sons will all be forced to learn useful trades,
and it is quite possible that as_ time passes she may irritate even
her husband, by constantly holding herself up to her somewhat dis-
contented family as a pattern of all the domestic virtues.

Nursery Rhyme.

(Trade's Union Version.)

Bah ! bah I Blackleg! Have you any pluck ?

Backing up the Masters when the Men have struck!

Tou 're for the Master, we 're for the Man!

'1 Picket" you, and '' Boycott" you; that is Bukns's plan!

The Waterloo Monument at Brussels, in the suburban cemetery of
Evere. Motto.—" For Ev&e and for Evere ! "

vol. ictx