MERRY MILESTONES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3191, 15 September 1917, Page 9

MERRY MILESTONES

THROUGH TIME WITH "PUNCH"

(By Jessio JTackay.)

If there is one and one only universal mirror of English life, it is "Punch."' For 77 years it has reflected tho moods and manners, the- foibles, failures, and triumphs of the Englieh people—withcit fear of the Caledonian Society, one may repeat the "English" people, for "Punch" is not British. The :inpriniatu.r. of tho English geiiius was upon it from its first hour, and if that weeping prophet, Mr. T. W. Crosland, ever mops up his tears vt gall over tho incursions of the Unspeakable Scot, it must bo when ho reads "Punch," which has Kept 60 undefiled tho puro well of its Saxonism. "Punch" is not aristocrat or democrat, but the trno isocr.it whom nioon-m.id pools named but failed lo visualise n century ago. Honest laughter clears the eye 3 and clarifies the understanding. Dimly this was grasped by cur mediaeval rmcostors, when they licenced the Fool in court and castle. For nearly £0 yeaw "Punch" has been 'England's l?ool-in-Chief, and if slio has not walked the straighter since, the fault lies not with tho path-finder in motley. To-day, when tho England we know is in tho melting-pot, it may not be amiss to look back through "Punch's" eyes on the England of long ago, beginning ou taht historic July 17, 1811, when first tho paper saw the light. I propose to planes over each tenth issue from that time to 1911. All that, indeed, lies back im that "ancient history" that ended on the midnight of August 3, 13U: who lives to write tho eighth decade's number will have seen a new-born world. "Punch" did not spring ready-armod out of space. It wns debated and turned over from every point of view froflj a day in 1835, when :i few merry adventurers, Henry Mayhew, .lohii Barrett, Douglas Jerr'old, and William Makepeace Thackeray, met *'n Paris and mooted tho question of a comic journal to supersede tho moretricious stuff purporting to represent the English humour of the time. Tho notion was inspired by the French "Charivari"; for tho rest tho God-of-Things-ns-Thoy-Should-Bo directed them to tho title, "Punch." The idea materialised at last, in a. brilliant if not very -business-like mazo of panrtproprietors, co-editors, and famed contributors. It was Mark Lemon who wrote its manly, fiery foreword, 'Tho Moral of Tunoli.'" Not -only for laughter was the dramatic genius of "Punch to call up now marionettes. It is good to road that in the hoy-day of Chancery and tho Marshalsea, an Englishman could write, "How many generous and kindly beings are pining in a prison whoso only crimes tire poverty and misfortune." Better still, when hangings wero as common as cricket, matches, that as could write: "The gallows, that accursed tree that has its root in injuries! 'Punch' sometimes destroys the hangman Why not? To us there is but' One disposer of life At, other times 'Punch' destroys the devil: that is as it should lie." ' Bravely and merrily did "Punch make his bow to tho world that summer day of July. All England was afire that day, not with battles, not with elections, but with tho question who should laco tho Queen's gown and hand tho Quoens shawl. For tho young Victoria had made up her'royal mind on this. Part with her Whig Premier sho would if bolter might not be, but part with her Whig Ladies of tho Bedchamber sho would not, however party wheels wnnt round. Puuch, M.P., drovo tho stiletto of Sivtire straight into the dragon of red tape:— "Out they go. Tho ropee of tho btato rudder aro' nothing moro than cap ribbous; if tlio Minister havo not a hold of them, what can ho do with tho ship? Who can tell what correspondence can ])O conveyed iu a warming-pan, what inlolligciico may l>o wrapt up in tho curlpapers of tho Crown? What subtle, sinister advice may Ho in a crutty disposal of roval pins upon tho royal pin-cushion ( AVhal Minister shall answer for tho Bound lcposo of Royalty, if lie be not permitted to make. Royalty's bod? To havo the privilege of making a batch of peers or a bunch of bishops is nothing, positively nothing.- No, the crowning work is to make a. ladies' maid." Still on high themes bent, and bcariiig in mind tho recent revolutions of 1 lie political whirligig, another writer supplements the daily budget by a list of unchronicled "outrages recently perpetrated in a notoriously bad locality near Westminster Abbey:— „.,,„„ -, , "Lord Melbonrno frightfully beaten and turned out of his house by a gang ° "Lord John Russell struck on tho head by a large majority and plunged into a stripped and treated •with marvellous inhumanity by a notorious bruiser named 'Tho Times. "Lord Normanby stabbed Mtli a sharp instrument, supposed to be Lord btanlev's tongue. , "Lord Morpeth struck in the dark bj an original idea, from which he has not vet recovered." . Needless to say, "Punch' was Anti°J?ho immortal cartoons which form a lniHiiii" gallery of English history begin here as "Punch's Pencilling" largely from the hand of "Punch's" artist coeditor, Ebemser Lamlells, ,vboso thumbnail sketches aro so delicately dotted through these ancient pages. Ihere m see the plump bud of Guelph royalty laced into stern decorum, trimly decollettec, but hardly yet in fullest glory of crinoline. . , It is difficult to escape the political atmosphere in this era of storms in teaCU an uncomfortable bed Pool has made for himself," observed Normanby to Palmerston. "That's not very dear to me, I confess," replied the Downing Street Cupid, "as it is acknowledged that he sleeps on a lwlstered Cabinet." The pacificator, of Ireland closed his faco for tho remainder of the day. Though Dickens, crowned already, and "busy with periodicals of his own, was not ono of that brilliant coterie of pioneers, there aro stolen AVellerisms galore: "I never saw such stirring times, as tho spoon said to tho saucepan." But there was a certain young AngloIndinn giant with a laugh as Titanic as his frame, who had not yet scaled tho heights of fame with "Vanity Fair," and who for the first nine years of its existence- was ono of the pillars of "Punch." Somehow ono suspects a familiar hand in tho "Puff Papers," which lead off with an Irish legeud, "The Giant's Stairs," rich in brogue and comic diablerie. For "Punch," English in all things, showed uo possible - grasp of perspective when looking Ireland's way. Either the Irishman was one imaging jest or an irrevocable anathema; between the two he had no human standing. . And yet "Punch," the mentor, could discourse with tho foreshadowed edge of a Bernard Shaw on tho purblind charity of his countrymen, as under this headline:— "Fetes for the Polish—and Fate of the British Poor." Wo have heard the following in many a raucous foreign note since, but "Punch" etung it home to the higher national conscience first:— "Oppression is what they would put down, but then the oppression must bo of foroign manufacture. Tour English genuino home-made article, though as superior in strength and endurance as our oivn canvas is to-tlio finest fold of gauzelike in their opinion not worthy. A half-oppressed Kaffir is an object of 10,000 times moro sympathy than a wholly oppressed Englishman. Fancy children, childron that should bo in their primo, so caged nud'i'ed that the result is disease- in the most loatlieome form. Think of these things a? the acts of some despot in o, far-off colony, and oh. how nil lionrts would bum, nil tongues call for vengeance on tho abettors of such atrocities."" But tho airs of the nouvoaux riches aro sot forth in tripping verse, wherein Mrs. Woiild-Be admonishes her daughter: There's Lady Waxwork, who, when ilrossed, Has nothing she can say. Mists Triirie of her lapdog's fail Will chatter Imlf the day; Tho Honourable- Mr. Trick At cards can choat or steal. Tliosc arc the friends that suit us now, For oil! Ihcy'ro so gcntccl. But., Cliarlotto dear, avoid tlio Blues, So matter <?ion or how;

IV literature is quito beneath Tho higher classes now. . TlioiiEli Itaphael paint or Homer sing. Oh! never ueern to feel: . Young ladies should not liavo a soul. It's really ungenteel. ltoro is a literary rcccipe "forwarded" by that bygono ting: of cooks, Udo:— To Cook Up. a Historical Novel. Take a young miin isix feet high; mix up with a horse, draw a squire iroin Ins father's estate (tho broad-shouldered und loquacious are the boat sort), pruparo both for potting, that is, exporting. When abroad, introduce a well : poumkd Saracen ami a foreign princess; slowdown a couple of dwaris and a conquered giant; fill two si.iiice-tureons with a prodigious ransom. Garnish with garland of dead Turks. Servo up with ;■• fcoyui uiiuTiugo and cloth of gold. . But naughty Mr. Punch lets ; '»mself wholly go amid the abysmal loyalties tnat greeted the Prince on that far-olt liyst Ninth of November that is still hardly as otlior days to us yet:— "Half the day at least," says the oil tor of the "Athenaeum," "wo are in fancy at the Palace, taking our turn of loyal watch by the cradle of the Heir Apparent; the rest at our own homes in that mood of cheerful thankfulness that makes fun and frolic welcome." A printer's dovil, sent either for copy or a proof, deposes that our fneml seized him and laying him on Ins lap, insisted on feeding him with his goose quill, at the eame time dipping that instrument in his ink bottle. The said devil declares that with .ill his experience of tho various inks uss.4 , s-entlP-men upon town, he never met with li'k eo muddy or so 'sour na the ink of the "Athenaeum." Wo do not den/ tfie statement of tho assault committed upon him, but the fact is the editor was not in his own study, but wns tafcins his turn at tho of the UUKo « Cornwall. , .. ■ In bland or trenchant ways like these did "Punch" begin his merry mission. Obvious and didactic they mar seem lo the ultra-moderns, but thoso yonnz Victorian giants lauphed in tune with tho birds of English June. There hns been a wintry tnn K to many of our ]okcs this century, thouch Jerome, Jecrold. ami lemon woild- li/ve mixed welh and Me■nlien LeacocTc been sworn into -the "Punch" brotherhood con amoj?. (To be continued.)