London's Famous Funny Paper is Really
Funny to Those Who Know How
to Appreciate Its Jokes.
Sir Francis C. Burnand has resigned the editorship of London _Punch_ after
a service of twenty-three years. It is hard to think of him as old, but,
being in his seventieth year, doubtless he had begun to find the cares of
his position somewhat irksome.
Eminent as was his fitness for the editorship he held so long, he started
out in life with no notion of becoming a humorist. Amateur dramatic
performances took much of his time at Cambridge. After leaving the
university, he became a barrister. Converted to the Roman church, he
studied for the priesthood, but abandoned this prospective future in order
to devote himself to the stage. Though he did not become an actor, he
wrote many stage pieces--plays, librettos, etc.; at the same time he was
writing jokes for the humorous papers, and when he was twenty-five years
of age he became a regular contributor to _Punch_. Says the New York
_Evening Post_:
The resignation of Sir Francis C. Burnand, for twenty-five
years editor of London _Punch_, reminds one how little it
has been subject to the vicissitudes of journalism. As if
by fore-ordination, the admirable parodist, Owen Seaman,
takes the head of the historic table, and _Punch_ will, if
anything, be more _Punch_ than ever. Others may change, but
_Punch_ retains a kind of Olympian uniformity. From its
first number, sixty-five years ago, to the last, its outward
appearance and inward savor are practically identical.
England has been in conspiracy to provide it with talent.
During the editor's term of office the paper lost such
artists as Charles Keene, Du Maurier, and Sir John Tenniel;
but it also saw the rise of Mr. Linley Sambourne's forceful
caricature, of Mr. Raven-Hill's delightful rusticities, of
the nervous and most expressive art of the lamented Phil
May. In fact, barring an inclination to overindulgence in
rather trite doggerel, _Punch's_ jorum has rarely been more
tasty than in the past quarter century. Its only serious
rival in the comic field has been _Fliegende Blaetter_.
There is, of course, the prevailing American view that
_Punch_ is dull. Dull it is, in the sense that the best fun
of the most jocose family may be merely tantalizing to the
outsider. A nudge to the initiated may be sufficient to
recall jokes proved by a thousand laughs; the uninitiated
needs a clue. Now, _Punch's_ family is London--a family
whose acquaintance is tolerably worth while--and probably no
one who has not imaginatively made himself familiar with the
mood of London has any business with _Punch_ at all. It is
the homesickness for London that extends the subscription
list to the bounds of the empire; it is the desire to know
what London thinks of itself, of the provinces, of the
world, that makes readers for _Punch_ in every land. It
represents London in the mood of intellectual dalliance as
thoroughly as _Fliegende Blaetter_ does non-Prussian Germany.
This representative quality gives to these two comic papers
something of the solemnity of institutions.