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Mr. Caudle thinks the house tastes of soap-suds
Charles Keene
1866
Wood-engraving
10.4 x 8.7 cm, vignetted
Thirty-third illustration for Jerrold's Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures (first published 31 May 1845): "The Seventeenth Lecture," p. 85.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"You're a brute, Mr. Caudle! No, you didn't mean washing: I know what you mean. A pretty speech to a woman who's been the wife to you I have! You'll repent it when it's too late: yes, I wouldn't have your feelings when I’m gone, Caudle; no, not for the Bank of England.
And when we only wash once a fortnight! Ha! I only wish you had some wives, they'd wash once a week! Besides, if once a fortnight's too much for you, why don't you give me money that we may have things to go a month? Is it my fault if we’re short? What do you say? My 'once a fortnight' lasts three days? No, it doesn't; never; well, very seldom, and that’s the same thing. Can I help it, if the blacks will fly, and the things must be rinsed again? Don't say that; I'm not made happy by the blacks, and they don't prolong my enjoyment; and, more than that, you're an unfeeling man to say so. You're enough to make a woman wish herself in her grave —; you are, Caudle.
"And a pretty example you set to your sons! Because we'd a little wash to-day, and there wasn't a hot dinner —; and who thinks of getting anything hot for washerwomen? —; because you hadn’t everything as you always have it, you must swear at the cold mutton —; and you don't know what that mutton costs a pound, I dare say — you must swear at a sweet, wholesome joint like a lord. What? ["The Seventeenth Lecture. —; Caudle in the course of the day has ventured to question the economy of 'washing at home'," pp. 84-87]
The couple conduct their argument about wash-day on two entirely different grounds. Margaret Caudle argues that washing at home saves money, and that her husband is being a hypocrite when, criticizing the practice, he complains about a shortage of clean linen. Job Caudle, on the other hand, complains about the chaos into which wash day throws the house. Despite the fact that the Caudles are solidly middle-class and can afford domestic servants and a laundress, Mrs. Caudle persists in the domestic virtue of doing her own laundry. Keene implies that she is hanging the wash on a windy day in her back garden, an image which may not be consistent with the location of the home. She asserts that his real complaint on these wash-days once a fortnight is that she is so busy that the dinner must be cold mutton rather than a hot dish as washing leaves her insufficient time for meal preparation. Clearly Job Caudle would rather send the washing out to a laundress than have the house thrown into disorder six days a month. Again, although Jerrold images the monologue at bedtime, Keene re-contextualizes it to the point that morning when Caudle, leaving for work, expostulated with his wife as she was doing the laundry, as suggested by the steam rising to the right.
Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures, as Suffered by the late Job Caudle.Edited from the Original MSS. by Douglas Jerrold. With a frontispiece by Leech, and as motto on the title-page, "Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Fury's lap. —; Shakespeare."London: PunchOffice; Bradbury and Evans, 1846.
Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures . Illustrated by John Leach and Richard Doyle. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1856.
Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. Illustrated by Charles Keene. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1866.
Last modified 23 November 2017