The Roadside Inn
"A Mouthful of Dust and a Pull at the Pump. [Dedicated to my Lord Robert Grosvenor"]
Wood engraving
Punch (28 July 1855): 36
Punch's depiction of the plight of the respectable working classes is the magazine's response to "Lord Grosvenor's Revenge," a parliamentary bill intended to prohibit the sale of beer on Sundays. In many places beer was a far healthier drink than polluted water or milk that spread TB. The notorious bill "gave rise to large meetings in Hyde Park and elsewhere, followed by riots. The Bill was subsequently repealed" ("Notes" to Vol. 29)
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham