Even when all allowance has been made for the exaggeration of the satirist, there was undoubtedly a serious warrant for this indictment, and we may congratulate ourselves that it is a gross libel on the medical students of to-day. They may be exuberant, noisy, and rowdy on occasion, but they are neither grubby nor callous, and the unfortunate episode of their treatment of Mr. "Pussyfoot" Johnson may be regarded, we believe, as a blot on the scutcheon of their sportsmanship which the great majority regretted and reprobated.
On the position and influence of women in society _Punch_, as we have already seen, furnishes a critical if not a complete commentary. Extravagance, exclusiveness and arrogance are faithfully dealt with. There is genuine satire in the picture of the fine lady who, on hearing that her pet dog had bitten the footman in the leg, expressed the fervent hope that it would not make the dog ill. Fashionable delicacy is ridiculed, and _Punch_ ranged himself on the side of "S.G.O." (Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne) in his crusade in _The Times_ against Mayfair matrons for not nursing their own offspring, and for employing wet-nurses who, in turn, had to starve their own children. A few years earlier, when the question "Can Women regenerate Society?" was seriously discussed in the same journal, the issue is drowned by _Punch_ in a stream of comic suggestions. There is not much to choose between the "Dolls' House" ideal and that expressed in the sonnet printed in the winter of 1846:--
I idolize the ladies. They are fairies That spiritualize this earth of ours; From heavenly hotbeds, most delightful flowers, Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies. But learning in its barbarous seminaries, Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours, And on their gossamer intellects sternly showers Science with all its horrid accessaries. Now, seriously, the only things, I think, In which young ladies should instructed be, Are stocking-mending, love, and cookery-- Accomplishments that very soon will sink, Since Fluxions, now, and Sanscrit conversation, Always form part of female education.
FLORA: "What a very pretty waistcoat, Emily!"
EMILY: "Yes, dear. It belongs to my brother Charles. When he goes out of town, he puts me on the Free List, as he calls it, of his wardrobe. Isn't it kind?"]