But even within the ranks of the social _élite_ signs of a desire for equal rights were not wanting. These, however, were mainly in the direction of aping masculinity in sport and dress. In the same year we read of the Duchess of Marlborough shooting, and a Ladies' Club is mentioned for the first time a few months earlier. References to the mistakenly modern idea of ladies smoking are to be found pretty frequently even before the Crimean War, which is generally held responsible for the introduction of the cigarette, and soon afterwards we have a picture of a lady calmly enjoying a smoke in the train. Fine ladies are satirized for emulating their brothers and husbands by leaving their bills unpaid. It must be owned that woman, if she ventured to step outside the domain of an amiable, decorative, or domestic mode of existence met with little commendation from _Punch_. He was a strong advocate of schools for cooking long years before the historic advice of "Feed the Brute" appeared in his pages. But the strong-minded female only excited his ridicule and satire, though with unkind inconsistency he was never weary of making fun of the troubles of the helpless "unprotected female." There are hundreds of portraits of charming Victorian damsels in Leech's "Social Cuts," but their predominant trait is health and amiability. Very rarely do they say anything wise or witty or plain spoken--even under great provocation from their pert schoolboy brothers. But we know--even from the pages of _Punch_--that Victorian women and girls were not all of this yielding and gentle type, and it is to his credit that in his sketch of "The Model Fast Lady," he was able to render justice to a phase of advanced womanhood remote alike from sentimentality and intellectualism:--
She delights in dogs; not King Charles's, but big dogs that live in kennels. She takes them into the drawing-room, and makes them leap over the chairs. Her mare, too, is never out of her mouth.... If she is intimate with you, she will call you "my dear fellow"; and if she takes a fancy to you, you will be addressed the first time by your Christian name, familiarized very shortly from Henry into Harry. Her father is hailed as "Governor." Her speech, in fact, is a little masculine. If your eyes were shut, you would fancy it was a "Fast Man" speaking, so quick do the "snobs," and "nobs," and "chaps," and "dowdies," "gawkies," "spoonies," "brats," and other cherished members of the Fast Human Family run through her loud conversation. Occasionally, too, a "Deuce take it," vigorously thrown in, or a "Drat it," peculiarly emphasized, will startle you; but they are only used as interjections, and mean nothing but "Alas!" or "Dear me!" or, at the most, "How provoking!"