In the sixty-six years of his existence MR. PUNCH has at one time or
another touched upon every phase of life in London. He has moved in high
society; he has visited the slums; he has been to the churches, the
theatres, the concert rooms; he has travelled on the railways, in the
'buses and the cabs; he has amused himself on 'Change; he has gone
shopping; he has lounged in the clubs, been a shrewd watcher and
listener at the Law Courts, dined in the hotels and restaurants, sat in
Parliament, made merry in the servants' hall, loitered along the
pavements with a quick eye and ear for the wit and humour of the
streets, and dropped in casually, a genial and observant visitor, at the
homes and haunts of all sorts and conditions of men and women.
Obviously it is impossible that the fruits of all this adventuring could
be gathered into a single volume; some of them are garnered already in
other volumes of this series, in books that deal particularly with MR.
PUNCH'S representations of what he has seen and heard of Society, of the
Cockney, of the Lawyers, of our Domestics, of Clubmen and Diners-out, of
the Theatres; therefore, in the present volume, we have limited him in
the main to his recollections of the actual civic life in London, to his
diversions on the Stock Exchange and in the Money Market generally, his
pictured and written quips and jests about London's businesses and
business men, with glimpses of what he knows of the variously dazzling
and more or less strenuous life that everywhere environs these.
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[Illustration: SUBJECT FOR A DECORATIVE PANEL.--Road "up." Time--in the
height of the season. Place--everywhere.]
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[Illustration]