Punch (12.1847)

" PREFACE.

From Palace Library to swing-shelf or cupboard of Two-pair Lack, docs Punch, in his Eleven Volumes—coated, now in
Imperial velvet, now in decent cloth—stand as the Guide, Philosopher, and Friend of rejoicing thousands. His Volumes are now
the Press Lares, the Household Gods (with an additional two every twelvemonth) of English homes.

Well, Punch blandly requests any one or all of his million readers to refer to his First Volume. Punch came upon the
political stage with the present moribund Parliament. Punch felt that he had fulfilled his mission in the streets and highways of
life, and resolved to take higher ground. In his First Volume he published his Address ; a meek, modest, little manifesto, whose
chariness of profession is most delightfully, most tremendously, contrasted by universality of deed. Punch hates a cock-a-doodle
crow of triumph, as he hates the undertaker note of the raven ; nevertheless, Punch will do a violence to his besetting modesty, by
asking of every member of the House of Commons—who bc^an his functions about the very time that Punch first made his bow on
paper—if he can think of his promises to his constituency with that pleasant dilatation of the heart affecting Punch when
contemplating the modest proposals in his first number, with the enlarging achievements, the growing triumphs of the past six
years ! Talk of the doings of Si. Stephens ! Pooh !—ponder on the conquests of Saint Punch '.

Why doth Punch refer to these his early days ? Why doth he ask the reader—(i. e. all the A. B. C. world)—to cast an eye
upon that modest paragraph that, nearly six years since, like a small phylactery, was worn about the brow of infant PJuncli—sweet,
foolscap baby, fed on printer's ink ? — For this one reason : to measure, if the reader's imagination will do it, the future doings of
Punch by the past.

The Sun, that lights the world, makes no professions of splendour—neither docs Punch. He shines, and never talks about
it. The Sex does not say—" Ladies and Gentlemen below, 1 will get up to-morrow." Certainly not ; but he does it. Neither
will Punch say what he will do in the course of the next Parliament ; but he will do it.

And is Punch surprised at what the last six years have made him ? Certainly not: he expected it, intended it.

Once upon a time, the wind shook an acorn to the ground. The swine were munching their meal ; thousands of acorns
were swallowed. But this one acorn fell into a nice soft piece of earth , and the dews fell upon it, and in a brief time it seemed to
open its mouth, and then it said—'1 I am now but an acurn ; but I will grow into a huge oak ; and I will become part of a ship that
shall sail to all corners of the world, bearing about all sorts of good things in my hold ; and carrying the white flag of peace at my
mast-head to all nations." Now this acorn was Punch.

At this election time, when so many men may ask how often they have turned themselves inside out by their votes, and may
therefore doubt another appeal to "an enlightened constituency "—Punch, certain of his re-election, says nothing, but points to his
now completed Twelve Volumes !

And the nation uplifts its millions of hands, and-with a laugh and a shout—exclaims—" We Vote for Punch ! "