The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99,
Sept. 27, 1890, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890

Author: Various

Release Date: May 4, 2004 [EBook #12262]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 99.

September 27, 1890.

MODERN TYPES.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S OWN TYPE WRITER._)

NO. XIX.--THE SERVANT OF SOCIETY.

The Servant of Society is one who, having in early life abdicated
every claim to independent thought or action, is content to attach
himself to the skirts and coat-tails of the great, and to exist for
a long time as a mere appendage in mansions selected by the unerring
instinct of a professional tuft-hunter. It is as common a mistake to
suppose that all tuft-hunters are necessarily of lowly birth and of
inferior social position, as it is to believe them all to be offensive
in manner and shallow in artifice. The coarse but honest Snob still
perhaps exists, and here and there he thrusts and pushes in the old
familiar way; but more often than not the upstart who has won his
way to wealth and consideration finds himself to his own surprise
courted and fawned upon by those whose boots his abilities would
have fitted him to black, and his disposition prompted him to lick.
Noble sportsmen are proud to be seen in his company, aristocratic
guinea-pigs are constantly in his pocket in the congenial society
of the great man's purse, art willingly reproduces his features,
journalism enthusiastically commemorates his adventures, and even
Royalty does not thrust away a votary whose ministrations are as
acceptable as they are readily performed. Without much effort on his
own part he is raised to pinnacles which he imagined impossible of
access, and soon learns to look down with a contempt that might spring
of ancient lineage and assured merit, upon the hungry crowd whose cry
is that of the daughter of the horse-leech.

But the genuine Servant of Society is of a different stamp. Ordinari