DOI issue:
May 23, 1868
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16881#0229
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [May 23, 1868.
A NATURAL QUERY.
Conductor. “ Will any Gentleman Eide Outside to Oblige a Lady?”
Obliging Gentleman. “ With Pleasure ! But—a—-which: Lady is it that I’m going to Oblige ?”
RAD POOD POL THE MIND.
At Bow Street, one day last week, Mr. Punch, two hoys, cousins,
John Barrett, aged 14, and Edward Barrett, aged 13, were com-
mit,ted for trial by Sir Thomas Henry ou a charge of burglary. The
father of the former of these young thieves “said the prisoners had
been led astray in consequence of their minds being perverted by
reading novels, published in penny numbers, in which the heroes are
highwaymen, burglars, and other thieves and criminals.” Every now
and then. Sir, you read in the Police Reports of so much putrid or
diseased meat, fish, or other provision, seized and ordered to be
destroyed, as unfit for human food, the person guilty of exposing it for
sale being sometimes also fined and sent to prison. Could not a law
in like manner prevent or punish the publication and sale of pernicious
literature as unfit to be food for the mind ?
Look into almost any news-shop window in the poorer neighbour-
hoods, and there you will see the romance of ruffianism inviting pur-
chase in profusion. Its nature is indicated by illustrations; ten or a
dozen, perhaps, adorning so many tales of viiianous fiction or actual
crime. In each of these some one, evidently meant for a hero, or
interesting personage, is represented committing some sort of depreda-
tion or outrage—piracy, burglary, highway robbery, garotting, assault
with intent to murder, or murder, in fact. Somebody in almost every
print you see, striking an attitude, is discharging a pistol at, or
plunging a dagger into, somebody else, or cutting somebody else’s
throat,, or hewing down, jumping and stamping upon somebody else, or
battering his or her brains out. Was it not a Saint who said that
pictures were the books of idiots ?—meaning merely the illiterate.
The pictures in low news-shop windows are books that, even a born
idiot may understand ; he who runs may read them: and they consti-
tute the education of our street Arabs.
Lord Campbell’s Act prohibits the exposure for sale of literature
and art specifically poisonous. Could not its provisions be extended
to the market of publications and prints as poisonous in another way F
! Suppose, Mr. Punch, you invite Government to offer a prize for the
device of a statute whose operation shall repress the romance of crime
without invading the liberty of the Press, by checking the issue of the
sensation novels which circulate amongst ihe superior classes. Get
our literary Premier to try and solve this p
THE POLITICAL AND THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS.
Op Mr. Disraeli’s political opponents the Times remarks in a
leader :—
“They have allowed themselves to be tied, and cannot extricate themselves from
the knots so easily as some performers are known to do.”
If Messrs. Bright and Gladstone were pqual to the political
Davenport Brothers, what gentleman of their party might be regarded
as corresDonding to Mr. Fay ? Between the Davenport Brothers
and the leaders of Her Majesty’s Opposition there is this difference,
that the former perform within a Cabinet and the latter without. The
Brothers Davenport are said to exhibit a show of hands at their
Cabinet door, but the Brothers Gladstone and Bbight will doubtless
command a larger show of hands on the hustings.
A Great Disappointment.
Care should be taken by newspaper editors not to mislead the
public by the employment of equivocal titles. A paragraph, headed
“ Spirit Movements,” lately appeared in the Times, and attracted a
great number of readers, who expected to find iu it some information
about the doings of Mr. Home aud his followers. They came upon
nothing more exciting than dry statistics of gin, rum aud brandy.
A Sensitive Plant.—Pingoe has so taken to heart the unfavour-
able remarks of the papers on his picture, that he is seriously indis-
posed. His friends say his condition is—critical.
A NATURAL QUERY.
Conductor. “ Will any Gentleman Eide Outside to Oblige a Lady?”
Obliging Gentleman. “ With Pleasure ! But—a—-which: Lady is it that I’m going to Oblige ?”
RAD POOD POL THE MIND.
At Bow Street, one day last week, Mr. Punch, two hoys, cousins,
John Barrett, aged 14, and Edward Barrett, aged 13, were com-
mit,ted for trial by Sir Thomas Henry ou a charge of burglary. The
father of the former of these young thieves “said the prisoners had
been led astray in consequence of their minds being perverted by
reading novels, published in penny numbers, in which the heroes are
highwaymen, burglars, and other thieves and criminals.” Every now
and then. Sir, you read in the Police Reports of so much putrid or
diseased meat, fish, or other provision, seized and ordered to be
destroyed, as unfit for human food, the person guilty of exposing it for
sale being sometimes also fined and sent to prison. Could not a law
in like manner prevent or punish the publication and sale of pernicious
literature as unfit to be food for the mind ?
Look into almost any news-shop window in the poorer neighbour-
hoods, and there you will see the romance of ruffianism inviting pur-
chase in profusion. Its nature is indicated by illustrations; ten or a
dozen, perhaps, adorning so many tales of viiianous fiction or actual
crime. In each of these some one, evidently meant for a hero, or
interesting personage, is represented committing some sort of depreda-
tion or outrage—piracy, burglary, highway robbery, garotting, assault
with intent to murder, or murder, in fact. Somebody in almost every
print you see, striking an attitude, is discharging a pistol at, or
plunging a dagger into, somebody else, or cutting somebody else’s
throat,, or hewing down, jumping and stamping upon somebody else, or
battering his or her brains out. Was it not a Saint who said that
pictures were the books of idiots ?—meaning merely the illiterate.
The pictures in low news-shop windows are books that, even a born
idiot may understand ; he who runs may read them: and they consti-
tute the education of our street Arabs.
Lord Campbell’s Act prohibits the exposure for sale of literature
and art specifically poisonous. Could not its provisions be extended
to the market of publications and prints as poisonous in another way F
! Suppose, Mr. Punch, you invite Government to offer a prize for the
device of a statute whose operation shall repress the romance of crime
without invading the liberty of the Press, by checking the issue of the
sensation novels which circulate amongst ihe superior classes. Get
our literary Premier to try and solve this p
THE POLITICAL AND THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS.
Op Mr. Disraeli’s political opponents the Times remarks in a
leader :—
“They have allowed themselves to be tied, and cannot extricate themselves from
the knots so easily as some performers are known to do.”
If Messrs. Bright and Gladstone were pqual to the political
Davenport Brothers, what gentleman of their party might be regarded
as corresDonding to Mr. Fay ? Between the Davenport Brothers
and the leaders of Her Majesty’s Opposition there is this difference,
that the former perform within a Cabinet and the latter without. The
Brothers Davenport are said to exhibit a show of hands at their
Cabinet door, but the Brothers Gladstone and Bbight will doubtless
command a larger show of hands on the hustings.
A Great Disappointment.
Care should be taken by newspaper editors not to mislead the
public by the employment of equivocal titles. A paragraph, headed
“ Spirit Movements,” lately appeared in the Times, and attracted a
great number of readers, who expected to find iu it some information
about the doings of Mr. Home aud his followers. They came upon
nothing more exciting than dry statistics of gin, rum aud brandy.
A Sensitive Plant.—Pingoe has so taken to heart the unfavour-
able remarks of the papers on his picture, that he is seriously indis-
posed. His friends say his condition is—critical.