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There is nothing insular about MR. PUNCH. Judging by his features,
familiar though these be and long as they have been typical of English
humour, he is not without some trace of foreign origin. Indeed, we fancy
that were a very searching enquiry to be made into his ancestry we might
find he had a far-off forebear who was, let us say, Italian! Perhaps we
have here the explanation of his breadth of mind and wide sympathy
which, however deeply rooted in the good soil of old England, are by no
means absolutely delimited by our coast line.
It is thus that we find him consistently the best of travelling
companions, for there is none he is more ready to castigate with the
whip of his satire than the insular Englishman abroad. This is as it
should be, and in these days of the _entente cordiale_ especially, when
the inducements to Continental travel are steadily increasing, all
patriotic Englishmen are anxious that their fellow-countrymen should
give as good an account of themselves as possible when visiting the fair
lands of our friends across the silver streak.
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MR. PUNCH, while always ready to stand for English ideals of right and
fair-dealing, has equally endeavoured throughout his long career to show
that all the good manners of Europe are not to be found on the
Continent. But above all, wherever he goes, let his travels be within
those green isles where he reigns as king of fun or as far afield as the
land of the Sphinx, he diffuses that good humour which is the essential
characteristic of the Englishman and adds so much to the joy of life.
The present collection, illustrative of the humours of travel at home
and abroad, certainly does not bear out the ancient criticism as to the
English taking their pleasures sadly. Like many another book in this
same library it proves rather that they take their misadventures
joyously.
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