As we hope, gentle public, to pass many happy hours in your society, we
think it right that you should know something of our character and
intentions. Our title, at a first glance, may have misled you into a
belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a thoughtless
crowd, and the collection of pence. We have a higher object. Few of the
admirers of our prototype, merry Master PUNCH, have looked upon his
vagaries but as the practical outpourings of a rude and boisterous mirth.
We have considered him as a teacher of no mean pretensions, and have,
therefore, adopted him as the sponsor for our weekly sheet of pleasant
instruction. When we have seen him parading in the glories of his motley,
flourishing his baton (like our friend Jullien at Drury-lane) in time with
his own unrivalled discord, by which he seeks to win the attention and
admiration of the crowd, what visions of graver puppetry have passed
before our eyes! Golden circlets, with their adornments of coloured and
lustrous gems, have bound the brow of infamy as well as that of honour--a
mockery to both; as though virtue required a reward beyond the fulfilment
of its own high purposes, or that infamy could be cheated into the
forgetfulness of its vileness by the weight around its temples! Gilded
coaches have glided before us, in which sat men who thought the buzz and
shouts of crowds a guerdon for the toils, the anxieties, and, too often,
the peculations of a life. Our ears have rung with the noisy frothiness of
those who have bought their fellow-men as beasts in the market-place, and
found their reward in the sycophancy of a degraded constituency, or the
patronage of a venal ministry--no matter of what creed, for party
_must_ destroy patriotism.
The noble in his robes and coronet--the beadle in his gaudy livery of
scarlet, and purple, and gold--the dignitary in the fulness of his
pomp--the demagogue in the triumph of his hollowness--these and other
visual and oral cheats by which mankind are cajoled, have passed in review
before us, conjured up by the magic wand of PUNCH.
How we envy his philosophy, when SHALLA-BA-LA, that demon with the bell,
besets him at every turn, almost teasing the sap out of him! The moment
that his tormentor quits the scene, PUNCH seems to forget the existence of
his annoyance, and, carolling the mellifluous numbers of _Jim Crow_,
or some other strain of equal beauty, makes the most of the present,
regardless of the past or future; and when SHALLA-BA-LA renews his
persecutions, PUNCH boldly faces his enemy, and ultimately becomes the
victor. All have a SHALLA-BA-LA in some shape or other; but few, how few,
the philosophy of PUNCH!
We are afraid our prototype is no favourite with the ladies. PUNCH is (and
we reluctantly admit the fact) a Malthusian in principle, and somewhat of
a domestic tyrant; for his conduct is at times harsh and ungentlemanly to
Mrs. P.
"Eve of a land that still is Paradise,
Italian beauty!"
But as we never look for perfection in human nature, it is too much to
expect it in wood. We wish it to be understood that we repudiate such
principles and conduct. We have a Judy of our own, and a little
Punchininny that commits innumerable improprieties; but we fearlessly aver
that we never threw him out of window, nor belaboured the lady with a
stick--even of the size allowed by law.
There is one portion of the drama we wish was omitted, for it always
saddens us--we allude to the prison scene. PUNCH, it is true, sings in
durance, but we hear the ring of the bars mingling with the song. We are
advocates for the _correction_ of offenders; but how many generous
and kindly beings are there pining within the walls of a prison, whose
only crimes are poverty and misfortune! They, too, sing and laugh, and
appear jocund, but the _heart_ can ever hear the ring of the bars.
We never looked upon a lark in a cage, and heard him trilling out his
music as he sprang upwards to the roof of his prison, but we felt sickened
with the sight and sound, as contrasting, in our thought, the free
minstrel of the morning, bounding as it were into the blue caverns of the
heavens, with the bird to whom the world was circumscribed. May the time
soon arrive, when every prison shall be a palace of the mind--when we
shall seek to instruct and cease to punish. PUNCH has already advocated
education by example. Look at his dog Toby! The instinct of the brute has
almost germinated into reason. Man _has_ reason, why not give him
intelligence?
We now come to the last great lesson of our motley teacher--the gallows!
that accursed tree which has its _root_ in injuries. How clearly
PUNCH exposes the fallacy of that dreadful law which authorises the
destruction of life! PUNCH sometimes destroys the hangman: and why not?
Where is the divine injunction against the shedder of man's blood to rest?
None _can_ answer! To us there is but ONE disposer of life. At other
times PUNCH hangs the devil: this is as it should be. Destroy the
principle of evil by increasing the means of cultivating the good, and the
gallows will then become as much a wonder as it is now a jest.