ContentsCHAPTER VII.

"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.

MUSICAL."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.)

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.)

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 whenPunchartists re-draw and touchup 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.

MUSICALMUSICALEminent 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.)

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.)

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 thatPunch'sranks 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,Punchthrew 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 toPunch, 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 hisoriginal 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,Punchhas given us more "pre-historic peeps" of humour than he or Mr. Reed have any notion of. "Bless you," saidPunchin his third number, "half the proverbs given to Solomon are mine!"

It was the fashion whenPunchwas 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 ofPunchv.Marshall and Another, when Mr. Bethell, afterwards Lord Westbury, complained that the defendants had published a "Punch'sSteamboat 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, illustrationsand 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 fromPunchall he desired for the work. (Law Reports 8, Exchequer 7.) Sir Henry Hawkins was forPunch, 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. SoPunchwon 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 ofPunchhaving published a joke worth copying and going to law about was the greatest joke of all.

During his minorityPunchmade and sustained many an open charge of plagiarism. They were the amenities of comic literature, of which, however, the public soon tired; andPunch, 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. ButPunch'ssilence 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 inPunch'sname 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,Punchhad to complain. "Punch'sAlmanacs" 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 thatwounded 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 thatPunch, 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 forPunch'spages. Instead, "Joe Miller" defended the size of his page, which was, he said, likePunch'sown, 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 aPunchin mistake for a "Joe Miller," he would willingly pay £5 for each copy so sold, in order "to compensate thePunchpurchaser for his disappointment."

From this moment until his death he never leftPunchalone, 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-skirteddanseusesin a grotesque pose or tableau. Those in thePunchcartoon (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 ofPunchthree years before; and it was claimed by his paper that the originaldrawing was exhibited in their window a week beforePunch'sappeared. But abuse ofPunchfor 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.

CARTOON ENTITLED "THE POLITICAL PAS DE QUATRE."CARTOON ENTITLED "THE POLITICAL PAS DE QUATRE."(Drawn by A. S. Henning. From "Joe Miller the Younger," 2nd August, 1845.)

(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 whichPunchhad 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 whomPunchcould find no room. Month after month examples were given ofPunch'salleged 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 theMoon" chaffed Bulwer Lytton on his initials, "E.L.B.L.B.L.B.," and Thackeray followed inPunchwith "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 inPunchsoon after; while the superiority of our "New Street-Sweeping Machines" over those then in use abroad (by which, of course, cannon was intended) appeared inPunch'spages 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 firstPunchdrawing just three years later.

CARTOON ENTITLED "THE POLITICAL PAS DE QUATRE."CARTOON ENTITLED "THE POLITICAL PAS DE QUATRE."(Drawn by John Leech. From "Punch," 2nd August,1845.)

(Drawn by John Leech. From "Punch," 2nd August,1845.)

But, apart from charges of direct plagiarism, "The Man in the Moon" certainly anticipatedPunchin 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 engineà 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 atPunch, 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 inPunchin 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, "Isthis omnibus going on?" and being quietly answered, "No, sir; it's stopping perfectly still"—a joke illustrated by Mr. du Maurier inPunchfor 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 inPunch. In his parting shot the "Showman" says, "ThePunchwriters say they can't understand our jokes. We feel assured that the world will admit that theytakethem fast enough"—itself a pun,bythe way, whichPunchhad 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,Punchwas 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.Punchfollowed 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 onPunch, because surelyThere can't be much fear of your laughing atthat."

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 ofPunchjokes. He will there find set forth in quaint terms theretort 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 byPunchin 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, butthere'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 fromPunch'spages. "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 aPunchcartoon.

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, beforePunchobtained 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 intoPunchunder 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 insignificantstature, 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 forPunchby 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 thenaïfrequest 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 theAnna Maria, just in from Hong Kong.'" But more than a quarter of a century before,Punchhad treated his readers to the same.—"Doctor Cockshure (advising a nervous patient): 'My good sir, whatyouwant 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 thosewho 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 toPunch, and of course it was printed forthwith—I suppose, somewhere about the 'Sixties." But as a matter of fact thismot, 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 inPunchby 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'spicture had, in accordance with the mechanical routine of the office, been decided on a week before publication.

Punch'sadvice 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 hercapital'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,Punchrepublished, 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 toPunchin 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 befellPunch, a doublefaux 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 laterPunch, 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 onPunchin 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 anotherPunch-baiter complained a quarter of a century ago that an American paper printed a joke whichPunchduly 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 inPunchas 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 inPunch'scareer—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 inPunch, 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.

AlthoughPunchhas 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 ofPunch'sbook, 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," repeatsthe 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 toPunchitself. 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 ofPunch'sinvestigation 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 ofPunch'spages, 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 timeof 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. AndPunch'sexclusion 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 inPunch'snonage 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 hisPunchas 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 andother 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 ofPunch'spages. 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 howoldit 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!"

The Cartoon takes Shape—"The Parish Councils Cockatoo"—Cartoonists and their Relative Achievements—John Leech's First—Rapidity in Design "General Février turned Traitor"—"The United Service"—Sir John Tenniel's Animal Types—"The British Lion Smells a Rat"—The Indian Mutiny—A Cartoon of Vengeance—Punchand Cousin Jonathan—"Ave Cæsar!"—The Franco-Prussian War—The Russo-Turkish War—"The Political 'Mrs. Gummidge'"—"Dropping the Pilot," its Origin and Present Ownership—"Forlorn Hope"—"The Old Crusaders"—Troubles of the Cartoonist—The Obituary Cartoon.

In describing thePunchDinner I show how the merry meeting lapses, by a natural transition, from pleasure to work, and ends with the evolution of the cartoon; how the mist of talk, vague perhaps and undecided at first, slowly develops a bright nebulous point, round which the discussion revolves and revolves, until at last it takes form, slowly and carefully, though changed a dozen times, and finally, after being threshed and threshed again, stands in the ultimate form in which next week it meets the public eye.

For when the meal is done, and cigars and pipes are duly lighted, subjects are deliberately proposed in half-a-dozen quarters, until quite a number may be before the Staff. They are fought all round the Table, and, unless obviously and strikingly good, are probably rejected or attacked with the good-humoured ridicule and withering scorn distinctive of true friendship and cordial intimacy. Then is each fully and formally debated, every tussle advancing it a stage, and none finally accepted until all the others have fallen in the battledore-and-shuttlecock process to which they have been subjected. Then, when the subject is settled, comes the consideration of the details—what should the grouping be? what the accessories? how many figures?—(during the hunting season John Leech would decline to introduce more than two, as his week-endwould otherwise be spoiled)—and other minor yet still important considerations; and then each man's opinion has its proper weight in the Council ofPunch. In this year of grace Mr. Lucy is listened to with the respect due to his extraordinary Parliamentary knowledge; Mr. Milliken is the chief literary authority since "the Professor" (Percival Leigh) went to his rest; and so each man is counted upon for the special or expert knowledge he may bring to bear on the particular subject then before the meeting.

And when the subject of the cartoon is a political one, the debate grows hot and the fun more furious, and it usually ends by Tories and Radicals accepting a compromise—for the parties are pretty evenly balanced at the Table; while Mr. Burnand assails both sides with perfect indifference. At last, when the intellectual tug-of-war, lasting usually from half-past eight for just an hour and three-quarters by the clock, is brought to a conclusion, the cartoon in all its details is discussed and determined; and then comes the fight over the title and the "cackle," amid all the good-natured chaff and banter of a pack of boisterous, high-spirited schoolboys.

More than once it has happened that notwithstanding a subject being well on the way to becoming a cartoon—the raw material of an idea having been almost hammered into a presentable political missile or social criticism by the heads of the company—a side remark may arrest further labour, and turn attention in an entirely different direction. Such was the case with one of the most successful cartoons of recent years. The topic of the week was the Parish Councils Bill, which was then before the Lords, and was receiving severe handling in that House. In the course of discussion came an "aside" from Mr. Arthur à Beckett, to the effect that "Gladstone is having a deuce of a time." "Like the cockatoo," assented Mr. Lehmann, referring to the story of the unhappy bird which was left for a short while alone with a monkey, and which, when the owner returned to the room and found his bird clean plucked of its feathers by the monkey—all but a single plume in the tail—looked up dejectedly, and croaked in tones of almost voiceless horror, "I've been having a doose of a time!" The remarkswere caught at by Mr. Burnand as a happy thought, and the new idea was tossed like a ball from one to another until there issued from it the well-known design of the monkey in its coronet, as the House of Lords, having plucked the cockatoo-Bill of most of its feather-clauses—a drawing which, under the title of "The Parish Councils Cockatoo," hit off the situation with singular felicity, and reaped the reward of the public applause. In a similar manner there developed Mr. Sambourne's peculiarly happy "Cartoon Junior," representing Mr. Gladstone, newly retired, looking up from the perusal of the first speech made by Lord Rosebery on his promotion to the Premiership—a speech some of the points of which he afterwards had to withdraw or explain away—with the words, "Pity a Prime Minister should be so ambiguous!" In the arrangement of these second cartoons, which, as is elsewhere described, immediately follows the handing of the written-out subject of the main picture to Sir John Tenniel, a contrast is always the first thing sought for. If the first deals with foreign politics, the second must treat of home matters, political or social; if the "senior" is social, the "junior" will be political; if Sir John is realistic, Mr. Sambourne is idealistic. And if it is impossible so to differentiate them, the prominent figures at least which appear in the one are carefully avoided in the other.

But in the early years ofPunchthe method was not so democratic. The matter was discussed, but the preponderance of two or three of the Staff made their opinions felt to such a degree that when a subject was proposed by one of them, that subject, when it appeared, was unmistakably theirs and nobody else's. I have before me the full details of these matters during a considerable period, and I find that on the whole Douglas Jerrold was the most prolific of suggestors, while Henry Mayhew (so long as he remained), Gilbert Abbot à Beckett, Mark Lemon, and Horace Mayhew, roughly speaking, divided the honours between them. Thackeray seldom made a suggestion, and it is not very often that the entry "Leechsolus" is credited to the great cartoonist before 1848. During the years 1845, 1846, and 1847, for instance, Leech alone proposedeleven subjects, Mark Lemon thirty-five, Henry Mayhew twenty, Horace Mayhew fifteen, Douglas Jerrold sixteen, Thackeray four, Tom Taylor four, Gilbert à Beckett two, and Percival Leigh two, leaving the rest to be shared by the united Staff.

The men who have borne the title ofPunch'sCartoonist are fifteen in number. Taking them in the chronological order of their first contribution, not of drawings, but of cartoons to the paper, they are: 1841, A. S. Henning, W. Newman, Brine, John Leech, and Birket Foster; 1842, A. "Crowquill," Kenny Meadows, H. G. Hine, and H. Heath; 1843, R. J. Hamerton; 1844, R. Doyle; 1851, John Tenniel; 1852, W. McConnell; 1864, Charles Keene; and 1884 and 1894, Linley Sambourne.[16]

From March 4th, 1843, to September 30th, 1848 (after which, with the exception of one cartoon in 1849 from Newman, and a few from McConnell in 1852, John Leech and John Tenniel shared the cartoon-drawing absolutely between them—no other hand making one at all for six-and-thirty years), there appeared 314 cartoons in about 286 weeks. It sometimes happened thatPunchappeared without a cartoon at all, especially in those parlous cashless days of 1842, and again in 1846 and 1848; but, on the other hand, two cartoons were frequently given in the same number, usually from different hands, though occasionally Leech would do both. The 314 designs were made up thus:—

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