The movement for learning "First Aid" had already become fashionable--and to that extent futile--and in 1901, in "Courtship _à la_ Galton," _Punch_ mildly satirizes the creed of Eugenics, as illustrated by the union of two Galtonites, despising sentiment, but possessing diplomas of matrimonial fitness. Romance and Hygiene seldom go hand-in-hand. The "Simple Life" was another favourite cult and catchword; but its votaries were for the most part "affecting to seem unaffected."
American visitors flooded London for the Coronation of 1902, and _Punch_ makes good play with a statement in a weekly review that "the old-world simplicity of rural life is unique and has an unfailing charm for our Transatlantic visitors." This was and is true of the best of them, but _Punch_ turned the announcement to legitimate ridicule in "Arcady, Ltd.," with its "faked" rusticity, carefully rehearsed and organized to cater for the taste of wealthy explorers. The cry of "Back to the Land" is illustrated in the futile efforts of fashionables pretending to assist in the harvest field: it is ironically commended in 1906 to exhausted _débutantes_ as the best form of cure for the fatigues of the London season. The "Simple Life," as practised by well-to-do dyspeptics and the unindustrious rich, was in his view a complete fraud, for they were really preoccupied with the material side of existence. Hence the adoption of weird unknown foods and clothing. In 1910 "Blanche" gives us to understand that the craze for abstinence had even invaded the "Smart Set":--
A good many people are going in for the No-food cult, the Dick Flummerys among others. Indeed, dinners and suppers seem to be by way of becoming extinct functions. Dick says that till you've been without food for a week you don't know what you're really capable of. I don't think that would be a very reassuring thing to hear from anyone looking as wild and haggard as Dick does now, if one happened to be _tête-à-tête_ with, him and some knives! Dotty tells me that, with their tiny house and small means, they find entertaining much easier now they belong to the No-food set. Their little rooms will hold _twice_ as many no-fooders as ordinary people, she says, and then there's no expense of feeding 'em. No, indeed. At the Flummerys', when your partner asks, "What shall I get you?" he merely adds, "_Hot_ or _cold_ water?"