Englishmen paid her for murder and lust;
And stained not their fame with one spot of the crime
That brought the rich splendour of Delhi to dust."

CHAPTER V.

"CHARIVARIETIES."

_Punch's_ Influence on Dress and Fashion--His Records--As a
Prophet--As an Artist--As an Actor and Dramatist--Benefit
Performances--Guild of Literature and Art.

The man who glances at _Punch's_ current number and throws it aside can
have but little appreciation of the influence of the paper, not only in
matters political, but in social subjects of every kind. That the Baron
de Book-Worms can make or mar the success of a new book, as completely
as the "Times," "Athenaeum," or "Spectator," has been testified to by Mr.
Hall Caine and others; and in some quarters at least _Punch's_
baton-strokes are as effective as ever, and recall the times when he
could, and did, drive a semi-public man into obscurity, which, but for
the fame of his onslaught, would have been absolute oblivion.

But it is in dress, in fashion, and in manners that _Punch_ has gained,
if anything, in weight and influence. In such subjects, treated as
"charivarieties," as Mr. Arthur Sykes has called them, he has always
been supreme, and fulfils an unquestioned destiny. John Leech determined
that there should be no Bloomerism in the land, and there was
none--only, by the charm of his drawings, he came very near making it
popular, and converting British young womanhood to Turkish trousers. Mr.
du Maurier thought that it would look pretty if every little lady in the
land were to wear black stockings; and every little lady did: as
unfalteringly as when Miss Kate Greenaway imposed upon them smocks and
poke-bonnets, or when Mrs. Hodgson Burnett clad mothers' darlings in
black velvet Fauntleroy suits, with bright-coloured sashes wound round
their middles. As the volumes are examined, the reader becomes aware of
the enduring value of _Punch_ as a History of Costume in the Victorian
Era. Even men's dress is noted with minute truthfulness--the violently
variegated shirts of 1845; the Joinville ties, with their great fringed
ends, out of which Thackeray made such capital in 1847; the pin-less
cravats and cutaway coats of 1848; the ivory-handled canes of 1850, for
sucking purposes--the fashion which came round thirty years later with
the advance of the "crutch and toothpick brigade;" the big bows and
short sticks of 1852; the frock-coats and weeping whiskers o