"PUNCH."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 828, 28 May 1910, Page 9

"PUNCH."

"Punch" and its history have always had an engaging interest for reading people, and wo have pleasure in calling attention' to a "Punch" booklet just issued by tho proprietors of our contemporary (says the "Westminster Gazette"), Bradbury, Agnew, and Co. The booklet gives,. in a conflensed form, a history, of "the worldfamous humorous journal," interspersed with a selection of many of the most notable of its pictures and cartoons shown in a reduced size, to which have been ,added portrait sketches of somo of its most famous contributors and artists, both past and present. "Punch" is nearly seventy years old —the first number appeared on July 17, 1841—but knows nothing of the infirmities of old age, and, wo are glad to learn, has a wider circle of friends now than ever before.

The most popular joko which has been published in any language in the history of the world is stated to be that which appeared in an obscure corner of the "'Punch' Almanac" for 1845. It read: "Advice to persons about to marry—Don't!" It would be interesting to know who was its author. Another, founded on a similar subject, was the "Advice to persons who havo 'fallen in love'—Fall out!" One of the most brilliant things that ever appeared in our contemporary was the brief dialogue between an inquiring child and his impatient parent: "What is mind?" "No, matter." "What is matter?" "Never mind."

On the literary side "Punch" has made many notable hits. Apart from Thackeray's contributions there wore Douglas Jerrold's "CaUdlo Lectures," which set the wholo country laughing and added a new word to thelanguago; "The Song of tho Shirt," which was published in' tho Christmas number of 1843; Lord Tennyson's "New Timon" —the attack on Lord Lytton—which appeared in 1546; and the fine lines on Abraham Lincoln's death in IBGS, by which "Punch" made tho amende honorable to America for tho attitudo of uncompromising hostility to both parties which it bad taken up during the great struggle of North and South.