PUNCH AND " THE SONG OF THE SHIRT."

Otago Witness, Issue 2202, 14 May 1896, Page 49

PUNCH AND " THE SONG O F THE SHIRT."

Thomas Hood's "Song' of the Shirt" war one of Punch's great successes, and at tbifc table its merits were first discussed. A woman, with a half-starved infant at the breast, was " charged at the Lambeth Police Court with pawning her master's goods," for which she had to give £2 security. Her husband had died by an accident, and bad left her with two children to support, and she obtained by her needle for the maintenance of herself and family what her master c&lled the •gocd living 1 of seven shillings a week.* Punch was at once aglow witb rad-hot indignation, and in an article entitled " Famine, and Fashion" proposed an advertisement; such as this for the firm that employed her: — , Tlolland coats fvom two and three are shown By Hunger's haggard fingers neatly sewn, Embroidered txmies for your infant made— Tho eyss are sisfhtleaa now that worked the braid l ■ Rich vests of velvet at this mart appeav, Each one bediuim'd by some poor widow's tear; And riding habits formed for maid or wife, - All cheap— aye, ladies, cheap as pauper-life. For mourning suits this is the fitting mart, For eveiy garment help'd to break a heart. The subject touched Hood more powerfully perhaps than others, for his nature was es»en< tially grave and sympathetic. As he himeeli bad said, it was only for his livelihood that ho was a lively Hood — although he was always brimming over with comicalities ; and he never felt more deeply the dignity of his pro* fesaion and his own force and weight than when he was engaged on serious work. So Hood conjured up bio •• Song of the Shirt," moved by the revelations of poor seamstresses who received, as it appeared, five farthings a shirt, out of which sum they had to find their own needles. Mark Lemon told Mr Joseph Hatton that Hood had " accompanied the poem with a fe*w lines in which he expressed the fear that it was hardly suitable for Punch, and leaving it between his discretion and the waste-paper basket." It had, said Hood, already been rejected by three papers, and he was sick of the ajght of it. Mark Lemon brought the poem up at the table, where the majority of. the. staff protested

against its inclusion in a oomlo paper. Bat Lemon was detei mined ; and, after all, was it not for a Christmas number that he destined it ? — a. number in which something Berioup, pathetic, with a note of pity and love, wan surely not oat of place. , The effect of its publication was tremendous. The poem went through the land like wildfire. Nearly every paper quoted it, headed by the Times ; it was the talk of the hour, the talk of the country. It went straight to John Bull's kind, bourgeois, sympathetic heart, just as Oarlyle declared that Buskin's troths had " pierced like arrows " into his. Tbe authorship, too, was vigorously canvassed with intense interest. Dickens, with that keen insight and critical faculty which had enabled him almost alone ameog literary experts to detect the sex of G-oorge Eliol-, then an unknown writer, , . . was one of the lew who at once named the writer of the verses. Aud it was Well for Hood that he had proof of the authorship, for one of tbe most curious things connected with the poem was the Dumber of persons wboShad the incomprehensible audacity to claim Punch shared hands ~>mely in the glory of the poet, and its circulation tripled on the strength of it. And Mrs Hood, poor soul, triumphed in ber prophecy ; for had she not said, and maintained in spite of each successive rejection from foolish editors—" Now, mind, Hood, maik my words: this will tell wonderfully I It is one of the beet things you ever did." And so this song, which in spite of its defects Still thrills you as you read," achieved Bucta a popularity .that for BUdden and enthusiastic applause its reception has rarely been equalled. > It was soon translated into , every language of Europe — (Hood used to laugh as he wondered how they would vender " Seam and. gusset and band " into Datch); it was printed and sold as catchpennies, printed on cotton pocket-handker-chiefs; it was illustrated in a thousand ways ; and the greatest triumph of all, which brought tears of joy "to Hoort's eyes, before a week was out a poor beggar woman came Clinging it down the street, tbe words set to a fimple air of her own.