_PUNCH'S_ JOKES--THEIR ORIGIN, PEDIGREE, AND APPROPRIATION.
"The Unknown Man"--Jokes from Scotland--"Bang went
Saxpence"--"Advice to Persons about to Marry"--Claimants and True
Authorship--Origin of some of _Punch's_ Jokes and
Pictures--Contributors of Witty Things--A Grim Coincidence--"I Used
Your Soap Two Years Ago"--Charles Keene Offended--The
Serjeant-at-Arms and Mr. Furniss's Beetle--Mr. Birket Foster and
Mr. Andrew Tuer--Plagiarism and Repetition--The Seamy Side of
Joke-editing--_Punch_ Invokes the Law--Rape of Mrs. Caudle--_Sturm
und Drang_--Plagiarism or Coincidence?--Anticipations of the
"Puppet-Show" and "The Arrow"--Of Joe Miller--And
Others--_Punch_-baiting--Impossibility of
Joke-identification--Repetitions and Improvements.
It may fairly be said that not three per cent.--probably not one per
cent.--of the jokes sent in to _Punch_ "from outside" are worthy either
of publication as they stand, or even of being considered raw material
for manipulation by the editor or his artists. In this low estimate, of
course, are not included the work of the few regular contributors who
are recognised, though "unattached," as well as of the others who make a
practice of sending every good new joke they hear to such a friend as
they may happen to have on the Staff. These two classes are not
numerous; but they are, and have for years formed, a little body of
bright-witted, laughter-loving persons, to whom _Punch_ and _Punch_
readers are under an equal debt of gratitude.
In the United States the providing of jokes for illustration in the
comic press is to some extent a recognised, if a limited and illiberal,
profession, he who follows it being commonly described as the "Unknown
Man." Endowed with natural wit and invention, but denied the gift of
draughtsmanship, this "dumb orator" is supposed to turn out jokes as
other men would turn out chair-legs, and sends them in priced, like
gloves, at so much a dozen, "on approval--for sale or return," with a
suggested _mise en scène_ complete, which the illustrator is
recommended to adopt. How far the system answers its purpose I am
unable to judge; but if the experience of Mr. Phil May may be taken as
an example, there is every reason why the Man should remain Unknown.
For, at the suggestion of a fellow-artist, he ordered five dollars-worth
of original jokes, the price being quoted at a dollar per joke. His
order was executed with punctuality and despatch, when Mr. May found, to
his amusement and dismay, that three of the jokes were former _Punch_
friends, and the remaining two were old ones of his own invention!
In the United Kingdom the joke-contributor is as a rule a disinterested
person, usually seeking neither pay nor recognition; and so far as his
estimate bears upon the value of his contribution, it must be admitted
that his judgment is generally sound. But of the accepted jokes from
unattached contributors, it is a notable fact that at least seventy-five
per cent. come from North of the Tweed. Dr. Johnson, ponderous enough in
his own humour, admitted that "much may be made of a Scotchman if he be
caught young;" and it is probable that to him, as well as to
Walpole--who suggested that proverbial surgical operation--is owing much
of the false impression entertained in England as to Scottish
appreciation of humour and of "wut." Some may retort that it is just the
preponderance of Scotch collaboration that has rendered _Punch_ at times
a trifle dull. Certain it is that _Punch_ is keenly appreciated in the
North. In one of the public libraries of Glasgow it has been ascertained
that it was second favourite of all the papers there examined by the
public; and it has been asserted that in one portion of the moors and
waters gillies have more than once been heard to say, "Eh, but that's a
guid ane! Send that to Charlie Keene!"
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that _Punch's_ dialect has not always
pleased up there, where "the execrable attempts at broad Scotch which
appear weekly in our old friend _Punch_" have before now been
authoritatively denounced. Under the heading of "Probable Deduction"
_Punch_ had the following paragraph:--"A pertinacious Salvation Army
captain was worrying a Scotch farmer, whom he met in the train, with
perpetual inquiries as to whether 'he had been born again of Water and
the Spirit.' At last McSandy replied, 'Aweel, I dinna reetly ken how
that may be, but my good old feyther and mither took their toddy
releegiously every nicht, the noo." Referring to this story--first
cousin surely to Lover's joke in "Handy Andy" of the Irish witness who,
when pressed as to his mother's religion, promptly replied, "She tuk
whuskey in her tay!"--the critic remarks, "It is pretty wit; for
_Punch_. But McSandy ought to speak in the Scottish tongue. Now, if
'night' is 'nicht,' why is 'right' 'reet'--either 'the noo' or at any
other time? Hoots awa." Yet _Punch_ has usually taken great pains to
verify his dialects, and Charles Keene--to whom the legends usually came
from his friends ready-made and carefully elaborated--would, as a rule,
seek to have them confirmed by one or other of his Scottish friends in
town.
Perhaps the greatest service that any Scot ever rendered to _Punch_
(apart from drawing for it) was the "puir bodie" who explained that he
found Lunnon so awfu' extravagant that he hadna been in it more than a
few hours "_when bang went saxpence!_" The reader will be interested to
learn that this expression--which may truthfully be said to have passed
into the language--did really issue from the lips of a visitor from the
neighbourhood of Glasgow. It was Sir John Gilbert who heard it, and
repeated it to Mr. Birket Foster while they were seated resting from
their labours of "hanging" in the galleries of the Royal Water Colour
Society. On the private-view day that followed, Mr. Foster tried the
effect of the joke on two ladies whom he accompanied into Bond Street to
take tea; and as they exploded with laughter, he concluded that it was
good enough for his friend Keene, to whom he thereupon sent it. The
immediate success of the joke was amazing; and Mr. Foster was therefore
the more surprised and amused a year afterwards to overhear a young
"masher" calmly inform a barmaid serving on the Brighton pier that he
was the originator of it, and that he possessed the original drawing!
Another favourite Scotch picture of Keene's is that in which a drunken
workman, remonstrated with by the parson, protests that the latter is
always blaming him for his drinking, but "You forget my droth!" This
incident really occurred at Pitlochrie, and was told by the minister
himself to Mr. Birket Foster, who handed it on to Keene; but--and here
comes out one of the charming qualities of Keene's character--the real
offender was not a man, but a woman. It was a chivalrous practice of
Charles Keene's never to show a woman in a really undignified position;
and when he was remonstrated with on the subject, on the ground that he
distorted the truth unnecessarily, he would reply that "he could not be
hard on the sex." But though "bang went saxpence" is a notable _Punch_
joke--and it may be remarked that it is not less beloved of the
political economist than of the Saturday Reviewer--it is not quite the
best known. That position is easily attained by what is undoubtedly the
most successful (that is to say, the most popular) _mot_ of its kind
ever composed in the English language.
It appeared in the Almanac for 1845 under "January," and, based upon the
ingenious wording of an advertisement widely put forth by Eamonson &
Co., well-known house furnishers of the day, ran as follows:--
WORTHY OF ATTENTION.
ADVICE TO PERSONS ABOUT TO MARRY,--Don't![13]
It is doubtful whether any line from any author is so often quoted as
"_Punch's_ advice." It crops up continually, almost continuously, though
not exactly when least to be expected, as experience teaches us to
expect it always; and I may assert from my own observation that it
appears in one or other of the papers of the kingdom on an average twice
or thrice a week. Perhaps what has lent additional piquancy to _Punch's_
piece of quaint philosophy is the mystery hitherto surrounding its
authorship. An inquirer who endeavoured a few years ago to solve the
problem set on record the result of his researches, by which, according
to a Scotch authority, he is said to have found the author in (1) a
policeman of Glasgow, (2) a bricklayer of Edinburgh, (3) a railway
official at Perth, (4) a compositor in Dundee, (5) an hotel-keeper in
Inverness, and (6) a "Free Press" reporter in Aberdeen. English and
Irish evidently had no chance. A letter, professing to explain the whole
mystery, which lies before me from a medical correspondent, under date
April 7th, 1895, runs as follows: "When in practice as a medical man at
Neath, in S. Wales, it was well known to have been written by Mr.
Charles Waring, a Quaker living at 'The Darran,' near Neath Abbey. Mr.
Waring removed from there to the neighbourhood of Bristol about
twenty-two years ago. The proprietors of _Punch_ were so pleased, they
sent him a _douceur_ of £10 for the contribution!" Further inquiry shows
that the late Mr. Waring was merely in the habit of quoting, not of
claiming, the joke.
Hearing Charles Keene's emphatic opinion that the author was a Miss
Frances D----, who many years ago was living in a remote village in the
North of England, and who had been paid £5 for the line, I appealed to
the Post Office for help to trace the lady out; and through the kindly
assistance of the officials at St. Martin's-le-Grand and elsewhere,
although nearly half a century had elapsed, I discovered her in another
village equally remote, the Post Office having courteously obtained her
permission to place me in communication with her. But the information
was of a negative kind. She was, she protested, quite innocent of the
credit of _Punch's_ Monumental Cynicism, and consequently had never been
the recipient of the fantastic payment of £5 per line. But since that
time chance has placed in my possession the authoritative information;
and so far from any outsider, anonymous or declared, paid or unpaid,
being concerned in it at all, the line simply came in the ordinary way
from one of the Staff--from the man who, with Landells, had conceived
_Punch_ and shaped it from the beginning, and had invented that first
Almanac which had saved the paper's life--Henry Mayhew.
To trace the history of much of _Punch's_ original humour would hardly
be desirable, even were it possible. But there are many examples of it
which, while essentially original to _Punch_, have yet sprung from
circumstances independent of it, and are in themselves amusing enough to
be related, or which otherwise present points of interest. To some of
these I call attention, for they illustrate _Punch's_ own aphorism that
"it is easier to make new friends than new jokes."
There is a capital story in Mr. Le Fanu's "Seventy Years of Irish Life,"
in which the author tells of a man who was accidentally knocked down by
the buffer of a locomotive near Bray Station. He was not seriously hurt,
and but partially stunned; and the porters who quickly ran to the spot
determined to take him to the station at once. The hero of the accident,
overhearing where they were carrying him, imagined that he was being
given in charge. "What do you want to take me to the station for?" he
asked. "You know me; and if I've done any damage to your d----d engine,
sure I'm ready to pay for it!" This story of Mr. Le Fanu's reached
Keene's ears long before the author incorporated it in his book, and
with the change of hardly a word it illustrated one of the best drawings
the artist ever drew.
Though undoubtedly many of _Punch's_ jokes are deliberately
manufactured, or else improved from actual incidents, a vast
number--like that quoted just now--are used with but slight textual
editing, just as they occurred. Thus Joe Allen it was--the light-hearted
artist who contributed an article to _Punch's_ first number--who
provided Mr. du Maurier years afterwards with that "social agony" in
which a great lover of children, invited to a juvenile party, bursts
into the room with the cry of "Here we are again"--walking in on his
hands like a clown--to find that he had come to the wrong house next
door, and was scandalising a sedate and stately dinner party. Henry
Mayhew had a story of which a facetious police officer of his
acquaintance was the hero. The latter was driving "Black Maria" along
the street when he was hailed by a waggish omnibus-driver who affected
to mistake the depressing character of the passing vehicle. "Any room?"
he asked. "Yes," replied the officer, with a grin, "we've kept a place
on purpose for you. Jump inside!" "What's the fare?" inquired the
humorist, a little "non-plushed," as Jeames expressed it, at the
unexpected retort. "Same as you had before--bread and water, and skilly
o' Sundays!" The joke duly appeared in _Punch_ after a long interval
(Vol. XLVI.), illustrated by Charles Keene, under the title of
"Frightful Levity."
Another omnibus story, printed just as it occurred, was that in which a
conductor replies to an old gentleman in the south of London, whose
destination was the "Elephant and Castle." "Yus--you go on to the
Circus, and change into a Helephant." "Oh, mamma!" exclaims a little
girl seated near the door, "do let's go too!" "Go where?" "To the
circus, and see the old gentleman change into an elephant!" A similar
incident, it may be observed, was illustrated by Eltze's pencil in 1861,
when a passenger in the "Highbury Bus" asks the conductor to "change
him into a Hangel." Jack Harris has often appeared in _Punch_. He was a
driver beside whom Mr. Edmund Yates often rode--"a wonderfully humorous
fellow, whose queer views of the world and real native wit afforded me
the greatest amusement. A dozen of the best omnibus sketches were
founded on scenes which had occurred with this fellow, and which I
described to John Leech, whose usually grave face would light up as he
listened, and who would reproduce them with inimitable fun."
The horrified swell of Leech's who is implored by an onion-hawker to
"take the last rope" was in reality his friend Mr. Horsley, R.A., by
whom the artist was provided with a number of humorous subjects. The
unfailing advantage taken by Leech of all such contributions, which his
friends assured him were "not copyright," has been universally
recognised. Among the subjects suggested to him by Dean Hole was that in
which his coachman, "unaccustomed to act as waiter, watched, with great
agony of mind, the jelly which he bore swaying to and fro, and set it
down upon the table with a gentle remonstrance of 'Who--a, who--a,
who--a,' as though it were a restive horse." By a curious coincidence,
as I have heard from the lips of a member of one of the great brewing
firms, on the very day before the appearance of Mr. du Maurier's
drawing[14] the identical incident had occurred in his own house, and it
was hard to believe on the following morning that the subject of his
plunging blanc-mange, similarly apostrophised, had not been imported by
some sort of magic into _Punch's_ page. A similar coincidence, far
graver in its first suggestion, has been given me by Mr. Arnold-Forster.
A friend of his sent in to _Punch_ a comic sketch of the Tsar travelling
by railway, while he sent a decoy train _in the opposite
direction_--which was blown up! The paper containing the sketch was
printed by the Monday, and before it was published that had really
occurred which _Punch_ had playfully invented. Until the following week,
when an explanation was published, a certain section of the public
criticised, with justifiable severity, what they took to be the bad
taste and ill-timed fooling of the Jester.
From Mr. Harry Furniss's pen came an oft-quoted drawing (lately used as
an advertisement), the idea of which reached him from an anonymous
correspondent. It is that of the grimy, unshaven, unwashed,
mangy-looking tramp, who sits down to write, with a broken quill, a
testimonial for a firm of soap-makers: "I used your Soap two years ago;
_since then I've used no other_." A further point of interest about this
famous sketch was that Charles Keene was deeply offended by it at
first--in the groundless belief that it was intended as a skit upon
himself. It must at least be admitted that the head is not unlike what
one might have expected to belong to a dissipated and dilapidated
Charles Keene. But the nature of Mr. Furniss's work was of such a kind,
and the artist himself has always overflowed with so prodigal a flood of
original quaintness, that comparatively few sketches were ever sent in
to him, or, being sent, were used. The origin of one of his
creations--that of the Sergeant-at-Arms as a beetle--is an example of
the lightness and quickness of his fancy. This representation, it has
been said, was generally supposed to bear some spiteful sort of
reference to the shape of Captain Gosset's legs, which in breeches and
silk stockings did not perhaps appear to the best advantage; and,
further, that the idea was suggested by the appearance on the floor of
the House of Commons, in the course of a particularly wearisome debate,
of a monster black-beetle marching slowly across under the eyes of the
Representatives of the People, breaking the monotony of the proceedings,
and arousing altogether disproportionate interest among the yawning
members; that the "stranger" was quickly spied by the artist, who about
this time had to complain that certain facilities had been refused him
by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and who, in retaliation, professed
thenceforward to believe that the two creatures were identical. But the
insinuation was untrue. For the Sergeant was already an established
insect in _Punch_ before the appearance of the genuine black-beetle;
and, moreover, so little did he resent it, that he used to stick the
amusing little libels all round his mantelpiece.
The national practice of sending in alleged jokes to _Punch_--a
practice, I imagine, of which the result is sufficient to prove how
deficient in wit, if not in humour, is the English people considered as
a community--is doubtless a convenient one to the many persons who live
upon a fraudulent reputation of being "outside," and of course
anonymous, _Punch_ contributors. "How clever of you!" said a lady in one
well-authenticated case to just such an impostor; "how very clever you
must be! And what is it you write in _Punch_?" "Oh, all the best things
are mine." The difficulty which Thomas Hood actually experienced in
establishing his authorship of "The Song of the Shirt" is recorded in
its proper place; while, among other things, Mr. Milliken's "Childe
Chappie" was claimed, as was afterwards ascertained, by a literary ghoul
whose strange taste it was to batten upon the comic writings of others,
and to use his borrowed reputation to ingratiate himself with the fair
and trusting sex.
Not a few of _Punch's_ jokes have been sent in by men who were destined
a little later on to become members of the Staff and diners at the
Table. Mr. Furniss's first drawing, as is duly explained elsewhere, was
re-drawn by Mr. du Maurier, and Mr. Burnand's initial contribution--a
little sketch of 'Varsity life--was re-drawn by Leech. But quite a
number of non-professional wits and humorists have acted as
disinterested friends, whose benevolent assistance has gone far to
colour _Punch_ with the characteristics of their own _vis comica_. The
chief of these no doubt is Mr. Joseph Crawhall, of Newcastle, whose
devoted service to his friend Charles Keene was an important factor in
the artist's _Punch_-life. From his other friends, Mr. Birket Foster and
Mr. Andrew Tuer, Keene was in receipt of a great number of jokes--from
the latter they came almost as regularly as the weekly paper. It was
also from Mr. Tuer that he received, among many others, that happy
thought, so happily realised, of the gentleman who one day paid an
unaccustomed visit to his stables to give an order, and asking his
coachman's child, "Well, my little man, do you know who I am?" received
for answer, "Yes, you're the man who rides in our carriage." This story
was quoted seven years later by Lord Aberdeen in a public speech, in
which he attributed the adventure--though on what grounds did not
appear--to "a celebrated physician," apparently Sir Andrew Clark.
After Charles Keene's death Mr. Tuer's humorous vein was turned on to
others of the Staff. One of his contributions may be quoted as
illustrating how unintentional are the originals of some of _Punch's_
jokes. In 1889 appeared a picture entitled "A New Trade," in which a
country maid, on being asked what her last employer was, replied, "He
kept a Vicarage." The circumstance had actually taken place in Mr.
Tuer's own house. When the number appeared, the legend was read out to
the maid, and it was explained to her that it was _her_ joke. She showed
no enthusiasm, not even appreciation; but on seeing the others laugh,
she said, with perfect gravity, yet still with hopeful perseverance,
"Well, I must try and make some more!"
To Canon Ainger, also, among a crowd of willing helpers, has Mr. du
Maurier often been indebted--for jokes rather scholarly than farcical,
such as the parody spoken by a wretched passenger leaving the
steamboat--
"Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee--
I've been as ill as any three!"
Most, perhaps, resembling the "Unknown Man" of the United States already
spoken of is Mr. Henry Walker, of Worcester, a gentleman of wit and
artistic knowledge. It had for many years been his practice, whenever
inspired with a good idea for a humorous drawing, to make a sketch of it
in his album; and thus he had collected a goodly number. At first he
would send his sketches to Keene from time to time, receiving due
pecuniary acknowledgment in return, but later on he left the whole book
with Mark Lemon to draw from as he listed. Altogether, between the years
1867 and 1869, Keene made fifteen drawings from Mr. Walker's book, in
some cases keeping close to the original designs, in others entirely
altering them; but in that re-drawn by Mr. du Maurier from the sketch
here reproduced, the original has been greatly departed from and
improved.
[Illustration: "MUSICAL."
_Eminent Musician:_ "You play, I believe?"
_Swell Amateur:_ "Ya-as!"
_Eminent Musician:_ "The concertina?"
_Swell Amateur:_ "No--the comb!"
(_From the Sketch by Henry Walker._)]
It may be added that when _Punch_ artists re-draw and touch up an
outsider's sketch, it is their usual practice not to sign their
drawings, but to leave them without any indication of their authorship.
Apart from these willing contributors are those from whom the Editor,
always on the look-out for new blood and fresh wit, invites
contributions, having seen good work of theirs elsewhere.
[Illustration:
_Eminent Musician:_ "You play, I believe?"
_Swell Amateur:_ "Ya-as!"
_Eminent Musician:_ "Concertina?"
_Swell Amateur:_ "No--comb!"
(_Reduced from the Drawing by G. du Maurier in "Punch," 20th June,
1868._)]
It is often thus that _Punch's_ ranks are recruited, and that Mr. Lucy,
Mr. Lehmann, Mr. Partridge, Mr. Phil May, and others have been drawn
into the agreeable vortex of Whitefriars.
On at least one occasion, however, _Punch_ threw his kerchief in vain,
for Mr. Bristed tells us, in his "Five Years at an English University,"
how the Epigram Club, of Oxford, was invited by the Editor to send its
productions to _Punch_, but that "with true English reserve" the Society
came to an agreement that all their transactions should remain in
manuscript.
Beside the editor of a comic journal stalks a demon on either hand--the
Belial of Plagiarism and the Beelzebub of Repetition. The public looks
to him to be a wit and a humorist, with a knowledge of every witticism
that ever was made. If he suffer an old joke to appear, some "constant
reader" will surely find him out, and publish the fact abroad with
malignant glee. There are few vices so deeply resented as the telling of
an old joke; in an editor it is recognised as amounting to crime. But
those who judge so severely have clearly never made a scientific study
of the Joke. It is not sufficient to analyse a witticism and dissect it,
in the cold spirit of that terrible book called "A Theory of Wit and
Humour," till its humour flies, like the delicate bouquet from uncorked
wine. The genealogy of jokes and twists of humour and of thought, of
form and application, must be traced; and the student will find that in
respect to a great proportion of our verbal jests of to-day they may be
tracked up to the Middle Ages, back to Classic times, and lost perchance
in the Oriental recesses of a jocular past. It is not only a case of
mere unconscious repetition or of brazen-faced plagiarism that is the
principle involved; it has its root in the chameleon-like variety of
aspect possible to a piece of fooling or a flash of wit. Jokes are as
adaptable to times and circumstances, as the human race itself; and to
identify them and pin them down on a specimen card, one must be another
Pastor Aristæus, alert and skilful, in pursuit of a lightning Proteus,
infinitely various and hopelessly volatile.
But even that is not enough. Suppose the editor to be a scholar, deeply
read in the Classics and in Oriental writings, and endowed besides with
a memory so prodigious as to be able to recognise every joke that turns
up, he has still to guard against the contributor, on whom he is to a
considerable extent dependent. The jest-purveyor may be honest when he
unwittingly sends in a joke that has already gone the rounds, and has
appeared perhaps in some country paper; or he may be deliberately
dishonest; or he may simply be impatient at not seeing his contribution
printed (perhaps, after all, it is only being kept back for an
illustration to be drawn to accompany it), and may send it off
elsewhere--anticipating its publication in the paper of his original
choice. Or a group of jokes may form the stock-in-trade of a newly
accepted contributor, who, as the seaside landladies say, "must have
brought them in his portmantel." And then there are recurring events
that naturally give recurring birth to jokes they almost necessarily
suggest. There is thus no standard, no system of identification for the
thousand disguises in which a joke may lurk; and unconscious plagiarism
and repetition deserve greater indulgence than that which they commonly
receive. Mr. Burnand, probably the most prolific punster of the age,
once wrote to a contributor, "For goodness' sake, send no more puns;
_they have all been made_!" Indeed, _Punch_ has given us more
"pre-historic peeps" of humour than he or Mr. Reed have any notion of.
"Bless you," said _Punch_ in his third number, "half the proverbs given
to Solomon are mine!"
It was the fashion when _Punch_ was young for the comic papers to
indulge in fierce recrimination and bitter charge and counter-charge of
plagiarism. At that time it was thought that a satirical paper could be
launched into public favour on its abuse of rivals--so that all the
drowning journals caught at the straws of the others' reputations.
Nowadays they more practically apply for an injunction. _Punch_, in
point of fact, has sought the protection of the law on more than one
occasion. As early as 1844 the Vice-Chancellor's Court was the scene of
the action of the Proprietors of _Punch_ _v._ Marshall and Another, when
Mr. Bethell, afterwards Lord Westbury, complained that the defendants
had published a "_Punch's_ Steamboat Companion" (an excessively vulgar
production) with intention to deceive the public. The judge brilliantly
remarked, "Well, this certainly is an excuse for the Court taking punch
in the morning. (_Great laughter._) I think you have made out a
sufficient case for your injunction, Mr. Bethell;" and the injunction
was accordingly granted. In the following year (July, 1845) steps had to
be taken to protect Mr. and Mrs. Caudle from the wholesale piracy to
which they were subjected on every side. Mr. Bethell again made a comic
speech, directed primarily against the "Hereford Times" and the
"Southport Visitor," in which the eighth and ninth lectures,
illustrations and all, had been coolly reproduced, without a word of
acknowledgment. As before, the serio-comic pleader was successful, and
obtained the desired injunctions. Again, in 1872 Mr. J. C. Hotten was
stopped from publishing "The Story of the Life of Napoleon, told by the
Popular Caricaturists of the Last 30 Years," inasmuch as the compiler
had annexed from _Punch_ all he desired for the work. (Law Reports 8,
Exchequer 7.) Sir Henry Hawkins was for _Punch_, and Serjeant Parry
defended. The judge, Lord Bramwell, and jury, too, believed in the
sacred rights of property, and a farthing damages was awarded in
addition to the forty shillings paid into Court. So _Punch_ won his case
and gained his costs--and Hotten went on publishing his book just as if
nothing had occurred. Another case, against the "Ludgate Monthly," need
only be mentioned for the sake of a rival's remark that the idea of
_Punch_ having published a joke worth copying and going to law about was
the greatest joke of all.
During his minority _Punch_ made and sustained many an open charge of
plagiarism. They were the amenities of comic literature, of which,
however, the public soon tired; and _Punch_, recognising that newspaper
readers will not be troubled to take part or sides in an Eatanswill
warfare that does not concern them, practically dropped a campaign with
which the rest continued to persevere. But _Punch's_ silence was
misunderstood. At any rate, it was presumed upon. When he could stand
the audacity of the poachers no longer, he broke out, as recounted, in
the summer of 1844, again in the following year, and once more in 1847,
into a practical prosecution. Douglas Jerrold's caustic pen had full
play in his all-round denunciation of the pilferers, and in _Punch's_
name he let fly at big game. "First and foremost," he declared, "the
great juggler of Printing-House Square walks in like a sheriff and takes
our comic effects;" and Newman's pencil added point to the
comprehensiveness of the assault. Of numerous frauds, too, _Punch_ had
to complain. "_Punch's_ Almanacs" of a vile and indecent sort, with
which he had nothing in the world to do, had been issued to his
detriment, and several papers were produced in close imitation of his
own; but it was the circumstance of his stolen jokes that wounded him
most of all, and caused him to lay his bâton about him with lusty
vigour. The incriminated journals, thoroughly in their element, retorted
with well-feigned indignation. Prominent among them "Joe Miller the
Younger" had professed for him at first a particular friendship which,
when contemptuously rejected, turned, like the love of a woman scorned,
to hate. It might have been retorted that _Punch_, in the words of his
prospectus, had frankly owned that he would give "asylum for
superannuated Joe Millers," and even that Mr. Birket Foster had been
actually employed in 1842 in "adapting" and anglicising Gavarni's
drawings for _Punch's_ pages. Instead, "Joe Miller" defended the size of
his page, which was, he said, like _Punch's_ own, copied from the
"Athenæum," and protested against any attempt at monopoly, pointing out
that the sub-title "Charivari" was itself a plagiarism. If anyone, he
went on, could prove that he bought a _Punch_ in mistake for a "Joe
Miller," he would willingly pay £5 for each copy so sold, in order "to
compensate the _Punch_ purchaser for his disappointment."
From this moment until his death he never left _Punch_ alone, and
constantly pointed out many of his delinquencies, plagiarisms apparently
so gross and frequent that it can hardly be doubted that some intrigue
was afoot. For example, on August 2nd, 1845, there appeared in both
papers a cartoon almost identical, with the attitudes reversed, entitled
"The Political Pas de Quatre"--after the existing ballet at Her
Majesty's Theatre, danced by Grisi, Taglioni, Grahn, and
Cerito--representing four ballet-skirted _danseuses_ in a grotesque pose
or tableau. Those in the _Punch_ cartoon (which, by the way, was
suggested at the Table by Gilbert à Beckett, and was executed by Leech)
were impersonated by Lord Brougham, Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel,
and Daniel O'Connell; while in the other appeared Lord Brougham, the
Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Daniel O'Connell; but, unless
carefully compared, the one might certainly be mistaken for the other.
The "Joe Miller" block was drawn by A. S. Henning, who had quitted the
service of _Punch_ three years before; and it was claimed by his paper
that the original drawing was exhibited in their window a week before
_Punch's_ appeared. But abuse of _Punch_ for this and other curious
coincidences did not save him, and "Joe Miller the Younger" soon
announced his metamorphosis into "Mephystopheles," which proved an
inferior and still shorter-lived concern.
[Illustration: CARTOON ENTITLED "THE POLITICAL PAS DE QUATRE."
(_Drawn by A. S. Henning. From "Joe Miller the Younger," 2nd August,
1845._)]
Then followed the bright and able little monthly "The Man in the Moon,"
from which _Punch_ had some of the hardest knocks he ever received, for
on its Staff were to be found most of the clever men of the day
(including Shirley Brooks) for whom _Punch_ could find no room. Month
after month examples were given of _Punch's_ alleged pilfering, which
really only proved how the minds of humorists run in grooves, especially
when dealing with topical subjects; and a cutting representation of
Punch as an old clo'man begging bits of comic manuscript, with the
plaintive cry of "Any Jo', Jo'--any old Jo'?" scored a great success.
"The Man in the Moon" chaffed Bulwer Lytton on his initials,
"E.L.B.L.B.L.B.," and Thackeray followed in _Punch_ with
"E.L.B.L.B.L.B.B.L.L. B.B.B." And one of Leech's sketches of "The Rising
Generation"--a small boy saying, "Aw--hairdresser, when you've finished
my hair, just take off my beard, will you?" (Vol. XII., p. 104,
1847)--was also represented as a gross infringement. The title of a
poem, "What are the Wild Waves Saying?" (with the reply, "We'd better
have stayed at home"), issued in "The Man in the Moon," was seen in
_Punch_ soon after; while the superiority of our "New Street-Sweeping
Machines" over those then in use abroad (by which, of course, cannon was
intended) appeared in _Punch's_ pages a fortnight afterwards. It is an
interesting fact that this self-same idea of the Street-Sweeping
Machines gave Charles Keene the subject for his first _Punch_ drawing
just three years later.
[Illustration: CARTOON ENTITLED "THE POLITICAL PAS DE QUATRE."
(_Drawn by John Leech. From "Punch," 2nd August,1845._)]
But, apart from charges of direct plagiarism, "The Man in the Moon"
certainly anticipated _Punch_ in some of his well-known cuts. The
"Patent Railway-Director Buffer," which consisted in the tying of a
railway director on the front of the locomotive, was certainly the
"Moon's" invention in February, 1847. In March, 1853, Leech showed the
world in his cartoon "How to Ensure against Railway Accidents," by
lashing a director across the engine _à la Mazeppa_; and as late as 1857
(p. 24, Vol. XXXIII.) Sir John Tenniel showed a "Patent Railway Safety
Buffer" precisely similar to the original device. Again, in "The Man in
the Moon" (January, 1848) the little joke--_Park-keeper (St. James's
Park):_ "You can't come in!" _Boy:_ "Vot do yer mean? Ain't it us as keeps
yer?"--is surely related to Sir John Tenniel's cut (p. 181, Vol. XXXII.,
1857), in which a delightful Hodge gazes open-mouthed at the sentry at
the Horse Guards, and replies, when asked what he's staring at, "Wy
shouldn't I stare? I pays vor yer!"
The "Puppet Show," too, kept up a running fire at _Punch_, and delighted
in retorting upon his charge of "picking and stealing" by printing their
jokes and his alleged belated ones in parallel columns. Among the
pictures, too, the "Puppet Show"-man was sometimes first, as in the
sketch of the fat old lady who enters an omnibus and, sitting down
promiscuously somewhere between two gentlemen, says, "Don't disturb
yourselves; I'll shake down"--an idea textually repeated in _Punch_ in
1864 by Mr. Fred Barnard. The "Puppet Show" (1848) is also to be
remembered for its joke of the choleric old gentleman, indignant at the
delay of an omnibus in which he has taken his seat, crying impatiently
to the conductor, "_Is_ this omnibus going on?" and being quietly
answered, "No, sir; it's stopping perfectly still"--a joke illustrated
by Mr. du Maurier in _Punch_ for 1871 (p. 208, Vol. LXI.); and for the
picture of the City clerk in pink, who, surprised by his employer, is
accosted with the significant words, "So that's the costume you are
going to your uncle's funeral in?" Charles Keene used a similar joke
forty-one years later, only with time the festival had changed into that
of an aunt. In the "Showman's" pages, too, first appeared the Frenchman
who accounts for his sore-throat by explaining that "Yesterday morning I
have wash my neck!" And the Duke of Wellington, in one of the cartoons
(May, 1849), cries, "Cobden, spare that tree," just as Beaconsfield
pleaded with Gladstone in Tenniel's picture of thirty years later.
Again, a man with a gorgeous black-eye enters a room, and when it is
remarked on, expresses his surprise that anyone should have noticed it.
Six years later Leech repeated the idea in _Punch_. In his parting shot
the "Showman" says, "The _Punch_ writers say they can't understand our
jokes. We feel assured that the world will admit that they _take_ them
fast enough"--itself a pun, _by_ the way, which _Punch_ had himself used
in the postscript to his first volume: "Ours hasn't been a bed of
roses--we've had our rivals and our troubles. We came as a great hint,
and everybody took us."
In "The Arrow," a clever fortnightly rival which existed (it cannot be
said to have "flourished") in the year 1864, _Punch_ was severely
handled for "plagiarising" two of that journal's jokes two or three
weeks after their original publication. One of these had reference to
the "Fight with Fate," which was then being played at the Surrey
Theatre; and as Mr. Banting and his famous cure (the stout undertaker
lived but two doors from Leech, in The Terrace at Kensington, and struck
up a pleasing friendship with the artist) were then the talk of the
town, "The Arrow" suggested a revised version, "A Fight with Fat," with
a disciple of Mr. Banting as the chief character. _Punch_ followed suit
with the entire idea. Thereupon the rival editor, Henry S. Leigh--the
lines are manifestly his--apostrophised Mr. Banting thus:--
"Take mental exertion--fight shy of diversion
(Remember, the proverb says 'Laugh and grow fat');
You may venture securely on _Punch_, because surely
There can't be much fear of your laughing at _that_."
Anyone who possesses the original "Joe Miller's Jest-book" will be able,
if he cares to look, to recognise a goodly number of the most popular
jokes of the day, even including a number of _Punch_ jokes. He will
there find set forth in quaint terms the retort of the non-churchgoer
that if he is not a pillar of the church, he is certainly one of the
buttresses, for he stops outside--used in due time by Charles Keene; he
will find the repartee placed by _Punch_ in the drawing by the same
artist (May 4th, 1872) in the mouth of an Irish beggar-woman who had
been refused alms by a pug-nosed gentleman, "The Lord preserve your
eyesight, for you've no nose to carry spectacles;" as well as that
witticism usually ascribed to Curran when addressing a jury in the face
of a dissenting judge, "He shakes his head, but _there's nothing in
it_;" besides other favourite jokes of similar antiquity and renown.
Robert Seymour, too, in whose work, strangely enough, Leech is said to
have found no humour, shines out posthumously now and again from
_Punch's_ pages. "Move on--here's threepence," says a butler.
"Threepence?" retorts the street-flutist contemptuously, "d'you think I
don't know the value of peace and quietness?" That was originally
Seymour's, together with the drawing of an Englishman's notion of "A
Day's Pleasure"--a labouring-man dragging a cartload of children up a
steep hill on a hot Sunday--an idea which was afterwards the subject of
a _Punch_ cartoon.
Two jokes which from their universality of treatment and the unfailing
welcome accorded them at every reappearance might almost be considered
classic and generic jests, were greatly assisted in their popularity by
Seymour's pencil, before _Punch_ obtained for them still wider
recognition. The first represents a fat man, between whose legs the dog
he is whistling to has taken his faithful stand. The old gentleman
whistles and whistles again, anxiously exclaiming, "Wherever can that
dog be?" After Seymour had done with it, Alfred Crowquill took it up;
and in 1854 (p. 71 of the second volume) Sir John Tenniel introduced it
into _Punch_ under the title of "Where, and oh where!" It was not yet
worn out, however, though it doubtless had seen its best days; and so
the "Fliegende Blätter" revived it in 1894 as a typical example of
recent German humour. For the other joke two men are required: the one
an unmistakable ruffian, a grim and dirty robber, and the other a weak,
nervous, timid youth of insignificant stature, the scene representing
the entrance to a dark lane as night closes in. "This is a werry lonely
spot, sir," says Seymour's footpad; "I wonder you ain't afeard of being
robbed!"--and the young man's hair stands on end, and lifts his hat
above his head. Leech in 1853 (p. 100, first volume) alters the dialogue
for _Punch_ by introducing the pleasing possibility of a greater
tragedy, by the footpad asking the youth to buy a razor; and Captain
Howard the following spring makes the ruffian inquire if he may
accompany his victim "to hear the nightingale." In "Diogenes" (December,
1854) the pristine simplicity is restored by the _naïf_ request that he
"may go a little way" with the young gentleman; and finally, in 1857,
Leech once more resurrects and renovates it with his astonishing talent
and freshness for use in the Almanac.
"Are you comin' home?" asks an indignant wife of her tipsy spouse, in
Mr. Phil May's admirable drawing of February 16th, 1895. "I'll do
ellythik you like in reasol, M'ria (_hic_). But I won't come 'ome." In
the previous year, however, the following had appeared in "Fun":--"_Guid
Wife._-'Come hame, Jock; ye'll be doing nae guid here.'
_Jock._--'Onything in reason, Jenny, ma woman, but hame I wall nae
gang!'" On the other hand, in the "Echo," in March, 1895, appeared the
following item of news:--"There is a curious report of a dialogue in a
Chinese medical paper:--Doctor: 'H'm. You are run down, sir. You need an
ocean voyage. What is your business?' Patient: 'Second mate of the _Anna
Maria_, just in from Hong Kong.'" But more than a quarter of a century
before, _Punch_ had treated his readers to the same.--"Doctor Cockshure
(_advising a nervous patient_): 'My good sir, what _you_ want is a
thorough alteration of climate; the only thing to cure you is a long
sea-voyage.' Patient: 'That's rather inconvenient. You see, I'm only
just home from a sea-voyage round the world!'"
It is amusing for one endowed with a taste for the history of humour,
and gifted with the requisite memory, to follow some of these
interesting revivals or re-births of comic ideas. Sir John Tenniel's
vision of "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," in the "Pocket Book" of
1880, was a familiar conception to those who remembered "Cruikshank's
Omnibus" of 1841; while Leech's sea-sick Frenchman, in p. 76 of the
second volume for 1851, was almost the counterpart of "Glorious
George's" important etching "A very good man, no doubt, but a Bad
Sailor." Again, one of the most brilliant things that ever appeared in a
comic journal was the short dialogue supposed to pass between an
inquiring child and his philosophical though impatient parent:--
"What is mind?" "No matter."
"What is matter?" "Never mind."
"This well-known definition," says Dr. Furnivall, "according to the
'Academy,' was by Professor T. Hewitt Key; he sent it to _Punch_, and of
course it was printed forthwith--I suppose, somewhere about the
'Sixties." But as a matter of fact this _mot_, which has also been
attributed to Kenny, had already been published in "The Month" as early
as August, 1851 (page 147, Vol. I.); and I may add that though I
remember hearing Professor Key quote it more than once, I never heard
him pretend to its authorship.
Then, the belated Foozle returning home drunk, and offering to fight his
aggressive-looking hat-stand, appeared in H. J. Byron's "Comic News"
(October 3rd, 1863), as well as in _Punch_ by Keene's pencil (1875); and
the humorous chess-problem in the latter paper, in which White had to
mate in a certain number of moves, if Black interposed no serious
obstacle, was an echo of "White to play and check if Black doesn't
prevent him" in "The Man in the Moon" of 1847, and of "White to play and
check if Black doesn't mate him before" in "The Month" of October, 1851.
Mr. Sambourne's famous "cartoon junior" of Mr. Gladstone in the
character of the child in the soap advertisement, who "Won't be happy
till he gets It" (_i.e._ the cake of Home Rule, just out of his reach),
was found, to his subsequent annoyance and surprise, to have been
anticipated by a week or two by the now defunct "Funny Folks;" and Sir
John Tenniel's cartoon representing Mr. Goschen, then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, as a hen sitting on her eggs--an idea which was not new even
to him, as he had used it in 1880, ten years before--appeared some days
after a similar one had been issued in the "Pall Mall Budget;" though,
of course, _Punch's_ picture had, in accordance with the mechanical
routine of the office, been decided on a week before publication.
_Punch's_ advice to vocalists, "Take care of the sense, and the sounds
will take care of themselves" (November, 1892), had, curiously enough,
been spoken years before by the eccentric Duchess in "Alice in
Wonderland;" and his conceit that there is no fear for the prosperity of
Ireland under Home Rule "so long as her _capital's D(o)ublin'_" dates
from still earlier times. Then there was the fine old Scotch joke of a
Glasgow baillie who, replying to the toast of the "Law," remarked that
"all our greatest law-givers are dead--Moses is dead, Solon is dead,
Confucius and Justinian are dead--_and I'm nae feelin' that vera weel
mysel'_," which in March, 1893, _Punch_ republished, adapting it,
however, to modern literature--the speaker quaintly including George
Eliot amongst our deceased "best men." More recently a precisely
parallel anecdote has been attributed to Dr. McCosh, apropos of
Leibnitz's theory of evil ("Westminster Gazette," January, 1895). And
again, there is an old story of Baron Rothschild, who when very busy
received the visit of a business acquaintance. "Take a chair," quoth the
Baron. "Can't," said his visitor, "I'm in a hurry." "Then take two
chairs," suggested the Baron, still engrossed. In 1871 the same joke was
sent in to _Punch_ in a remodelled form, and duly published. "Call me a
cab!" says an excited gentleman. "You're too late, sir," replies the
servant; "a cab couldn't do it." "Confound you!" cries the other, "call
two cabs, then!"
In 1892 a catastrophe befell _Punch_, a double _faux pas_. An excellent
child story had been printed in "Vanity Fair" of October 15th, in which
a little girl at a Sunday-school class was asked to define a parable:
"Please, miss," replies the child, "a parable's a 'eavenly story with no
earthly meaning!" A fortnight later _Punch_, who had been victimised,
had the misfortune, not only to come out with the same joke, but by a
typographical slip to spoil it by making the child define a parable as
"a heavenly story with an earthly meaning"--the result being to evoke a
pæan of exultation from the few papers whose favourite sport it is to
keep a malevolent weather-eye on _Punch_ in perpetual hope of catching
him tripping. Just such a little chorus of mischievous delight greeted
the publication of Mr. du Maurier's joke in which an old maid complains
that a serious drawback to the charming view from her windows is the
tourists bathing on the opposite shore. It is true, as her friend
reminds her, that the distance is very great--"_but with a telescope,
you know!_" But years before, Charles Keene had illustrated the same
idea, taking, however, a cricket dressing-tent instead of a bathing
shore; and long before that it had been scoffed at for its antiquity.
In like fashion another _Punch_-baiter complained a quarter of a century
ago that an American paper printed a joke which _Punch_ duly used as a
"social," and which has since been revived as follows: "Harriet Hosmer
tells of an incident which occurred in her studio, where her statue of
Apollo rested. An old lady was being shown around, a Mrs. Raggles, and
she paused before this masterpiece a long time. Finally she exclaimed,
'So that's Apoller, is it?' She was assured that it was. 'Supposed to be
the handsomest man in the world, warn't he?' The surmise was assented
to. Then turning away disgustedly, 'Wal,' she said, 'I've seen Apoller
and I've seen Raggles--an' I say, Give me Raggles!'"
One of the stories told of Dominique was once printed in _Punch_ as
original. This was when he took a bath by the doctor's order, and being
asked how he felt, replied, "Rather wet." The jokelet, curiously enough,
had already been printed in "Mark Lemon's Jest-Book," and was so far a
classic that it is to be found in the "Arlequina" of 1694. Again, the
story of the boy who, when ordered by a "swell" to hold his horse, asked
if it bit, or kicked, or took two to hold, and when reassured on each
point, replied, "Then hold him yourself," is older still; for it is to
be found in "Mery Tales, Wittie Questions and Quicke Answeres Very
pleasant to be Readde" (published by H. Wilkes in 1567), under the
heading, "Of the Courtier that bad the boy holde his horse, xliii." This
little book, by the way, is included in Hazlitt's collection of
Shakespeare's Jest-books.
In drawing attention to these incidents in _Punch's_ career--examples
of which might easily be multiplied--it is not my purpose to expose
shortcomings, but rather to insist on the difficulty of the humorist's
path and the pitfalls that beset genuine originality. "The late Mark
Lemon," wrote Mr. Hatton, "had a kind of editorial instinct for an old
joke. He could identify the spurious article as easily as an expert
detects counterfeit money. Lemon's soul was in _Punch_, and he had a
keen memory for every line that had appeared in its columns. He edited a
book of humorous anecdotes, but even he overlooked numerous doubles, and
left not a few errors for the detection of the critics;" in fact, was
fallible too, as in the nature of things he was bound to be. And Shirley
Brooks, although with his wide knowledge of comic literature and "happy
thoughts" he was successful too, had nevertheless humiliation to bear
for blunders not a few. Tom Taylor neither knew nor cared; as Mr.
Labouchere severely said, "he had no sense of humour," and the jokes had
to take their chance. But to-day a careful eye is kept to this question
of originality, and so far as cartoons are concerned, Sir John Tenniel
has always been trusted to see that subjects for cartoons are not used
over again.
Although _Punch_ has tripped now and again, he has been the comic quarry
which the nation and the nation's press have worked for half a century,
quoting, borrowing, stealing, a thousand times to his once. His best
ideas are enjoyed and used, and in due time are sent back, often quite
innocently, for re-issue. Nay, even what is popularly known in England
as "modern American humour" has been claimed as a leaf out of _Punch's_
book, quaint exaggeration forming its staple feature, as in the case
where we are told that "a young artist in Picayune takes such perfect
likenesses that a lady married the portrait of her lover instead of the
original."
Lastly, a couple of drawings by Mr. du Maurier may be referred to
(second volume for 1872, and first volume for 1894), which created a
good deal of amusement at the time of their publication. In the first
case a visitor calls to inquire after the condition of a happy mother.
And the babe, is it a boy? "No," says the page. Ah! a girl. "No,"
repeats the lad. What is it, then? asks the startled visitor. "If you
please," replies the intelligent retainer, "the doctor said it was a
Heir!" Now, this joke almost textually reproduces a circumstance
attending the birth of that Earl of Dudley of whom Rogers wrote the
epigram which Byron thought "unsurpassable":--
"Ward has no heart, they say; but I deny it;
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it."
The second drawing reproduces a story (long since forgotten) of the
first Duke of Wellington, who joined a notorious gambling club, with the
express view, it was said, to black-balling his son, the Marquis of
Douro, a likely candidate--and then went complacently and told him so.
Much the same difficulty attending the identification and indexing of
the jokes of the past is experienced in respect to _Punch_ itself.
Consider for a moment. That work consisted in the summer of 1895 of 108
volumes. At the moderate estimate of four jokes per column, attempted
and made, we reach a grand total of nearly 270,000 jokes--a total
bewildering in its vastness, and representing, one would think, all the
humour that ever was produced since this melancholy world began. The
mind refuses to grasp such a mass of comicality; how, then, would you
classify this prodigious joviality and sarcasm? How detect a joke that
may reappear under a hundred disguises of time, place, condition, and
application--yet the same root-joke after all? Is it surprising that the
same ideas recur--and, recurring, sometimes escape the shrewd eye of
_Punch's_ investigation department?
It has already been said that to Sir John Tenniel it has fallen to
prevent the repetition of subjects in respect to the cartoons. Yet it
must not be imagined that others on the Staff are not as earnest
students of _Punch's_ pages, that they have not graduated as Masters of
his Arts. Yet, for all their vigilance, repetitions have often recurred.
You remember Tenniel's superb cartoon of the noble savage manacled with
the chains of slavery taking refuge on a British ship with clasped hands
uplifted to the commander? It was at the time of Mr. Ward Hunt's
slavery circular, and was entitled "Am I not a Man and a Brother?" A
like subject with the same title was contributed by Leech on June 1st,
1844, when a manacled negro appeals to Lord Brougham, who, making "a
long nose," hurries off to the Privy Council Office. Similarly have we
had two "Vigils"--one in the spring of 1854, and the other thirty-four
years later. And _Punch's_ exclusion from France, figuratively at Calais
Pier, has been the subject of two drawings--the first in 1843,[15] and
the other, by Mr. Linley Sambourne, on January 12th, 1878. The
repetitions at such long intervals lose, of course, any such
significance as the critical might feel inclined to attribute; but in
_Punch's_ nonage the self-same engravings have more than once been
actually used a second time, such as "Deaf Burke"--the celebrated
prize-fighter of Windmill Street--who was shown twice in the first
volume, certainly not for his beauty's sake; a drawing by Hine, which
was similarly employed in the same year; and in 1842 a cut by Gagniet,
which had been bought from a French publication. Perhaps the nearest
modern approach to this was when in 1872 Mr. Sambourne practically
repeated his figure of Mr. Punch turning round from his easel to face
the reader.
At the time when the Russo-Turkish War was drawing to a close, one of
the most powerful of Tenniel's cartoons--which made a great impression
on the country, as giving keen point to Mr. Gladstone's agitation
against Lord Beaconsfield's attitude at that period--was the drawing of
the Prime Minister, leaning back comfortably reading in his armchair,
declaring that he can see nothing at all about "Bulgarian Atrocities" in
the Blue Books, though the background of the picture itself is all
violence and butchery. Yet nobody recalled the fact that the artist had
made a similar cartoon of Cobden and Palmerston in the spring of 1857.
Charles Keene certainly had not studied his _Punch_ as he ought. Of that
there is abundant proof; for although the care he took to obtain good
and original jokes was conscientious in the extreme, he over and over
again re-drew his own and other people's drolleries. The British
grumble of the British farmer who under no circumstances can be appeased
or contented was typified by Leech in a picture wherein the farmer was
represented as looking at a splendid field of heavy golden corn (p. 96,
Vol. XXVII, 1854), but was not satisfied even then. "Ah!" he grumbles,
"see what it'll cost me to get it in!" The idea tickled Keene so greatly
when he heard it that, entirely unmindful of Leech's page, he made a
drawing of the same subject on p. 268 of the first volume for 1878; and
then, forgetting all about it, eleven years later (p. 35 of the second
volume for 1889) he actually did it all over again!
"What do you mean by coming home at this time of night?" asks an
indignant wife of her tipsy husband. "My dear," replies the prodigal,
with a generous attempt at candour and conciliation, "all other places
shu'rup!" Keene drew this admirably in 1871 (p. 71, Vol. LXI), and Mr.
du Maurier most delightfully again in 1883 (p. 14, Vol. LXXXIV.). These
and many more examples of unconscious receptivity and reproduction by
professional humorists will strike the attentive reader of _Punch's_
pages. He will see how to both Leech and Mr. Ralston occurred the idea
of an over-dressed vulgarian in morning clothes protesting in angry
dismay against the opera-house officials' suggestion that he is
not in "full dress;" how both Miss Georgina Bowers (1870) and
Mr. du Maurier were tickled by the retort to the economical dictum
that it is extravagant to have both butter and jam on a slice of
bread--"Extravagant? _Economical!_--same piece of bread does for both!";
how "Childe Chappie's Pilgrimage" of our day was preceded by "Child
Snobson's Pilgrimage" of 1842; how Mr. du Maurier in November, 1888, and
again in the Almanac for 1895 repeated the joke of a husband declaring
that he would be "extremely annoyed" if in the event of his death his
wife did not invite certain of his particular friends to his funeral;
how Poe's "Bells" maintain their power to attract the parodist; how
curiously tempting to the punster is the idea of a bashful policeman in
the National Gallery being asked where "the fine new Constable is" (for
Mr. Burnand, Charles Keene, and Sir Frank Lockwood have all done it, in
the order indicated); and many other amusing slips of the sort. And he
must not on any account miss those twin jokes--for they are both of them
good and in their essence identical--of John Leech and Mr. du Maurier.
In Mr. du Maurier's version we have a poor woman touting for a bottle of
wine for her sick husband. The doctor had recommended port, she
says--"and it doesn't matter how _old_ it is, sir!" In Leech's the host
is impressing on his youthful guest that "that wine has been in my
cellar four-and-twenty years come last Christmas--four-and-twenty years,
sir!" And the guileless youth gushingly makes answer, in the belief that
he is making himself remarkably pleasant, "Has it really, sir? _What it
must have been when it was new!_"
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Compare Shirley Brooks's couplet (1857):--
"MARRY (AND DON'T) COME UP.
"A fellow that's single, a fine fellow's he;
But a fellow that's married's a _felo de se_."
[14] See _Punch_, p. 235, Vol. LXI., 1861.
[15] See p. 191.