The cartoonist did not think it necessary to spell out what was troubling the young unmarried doctor who would undoubtedly know that he is a desirable ‘catch’. Both young ladies are insisting that he should share her hymnbook. What can he do? He can’t share with both of them. He knows very well that while he can please one he will annoy the other, and more importantly her mama. Which mama is the more influential in the neighbourhood? It rather looks as though he is steadfastly looking at neither. That won’t help him. Now he is going to annoy both mamas.
He should have made sure that he had got hold of a hymnbook before entering his pew.
Mr Cantwell is giving sound advice. The ark won’t have to be put away in the toy cupboard on a Sunday.
This kind of thing lingered on for a long time. I remember on holiday seeing swings chained up in a municipal playground on a Sunday. This would have been in the 1970s in either Devon, Cornwall or Dorset.
I’ve just spent an interesting few minutes reading these Mr Magoo,My favorite was The lady cyclist and the reply she got,it was my first LOL of the day .Thanks for posting them …
The clothes worn by the ladies are not at all Victorian but the language used by the female onlooker is still very Victorian. The less judgmental comment of her husband gives her the punch line of the joke. The term ‘woman with a past’ does not properly describe what she intended to mean. It was the nearest polite expression to what was really in her mind.
This joke belongs to a well-established tradition in which children innocently repeat with embarrassing results what their parents have said in confidence.
I would think that there is much less scope today for such humour – small children seem much more knowing. Perhaps this is because of all the television that they are watching.
Punch is also famous for its political cartoons which sometimes assumed the importance of a leading article in The Times. Dropping the Pilot is probably the most celebrated.
Bismarck had been the architect of German unity. Before the unification there had been quite a number of German sovereign states: a few relatively large and many small. In 1871 he had united them all (with the exception of Austria) into a new state of Germany and the kings of Prussia had become German Emperors.
By 1890 a new Emperor, Wilhelm, no longer accepted Bismarck as the man behind the scenes. Wilhelm was determined to run Germany without the advice of the Iron Chancellor. The cartoon shows Bismarck departing with dignity while the young emperor looks on. The ex-chancellor shows signs of his age: he needs both hands to steady himself while walking down the steps to a waiting boat. The young emperor in military uniform with his crown on his head looks on enigmatically.
As Queen Victoria’s oldest grandson Wilhelm attracted a great deal of attention in Britain and at that time not at all hostile. It is by no means clear that this cartoon is criticising the Kaiser. But the future of Germany is certainly being viewed with great interest.
1933: Duke’s Younger Son Joins the Communist Party
Here is a reminder of an almost forgotten piece of twentieth century history. This sort of thing would become unthinkable during the Cold War. But in the 1930s Punch thought it quite plausible.
The Cambridge spies and many others like them in the 1930s became communists for idealistic reasons. What had prompted them was a combination of the miseries caused by the Great Depression and a faulty piece of logic which went like this:
Capitalism is bad.
Communism is opposed to capitalism.
Therefore communism is good.
Twenty years later this would embarrass them though they would not have to face Senator McCarthy and his sidekick, Richard Nixon.
Murdoch belongs to a long line of press barons. Northcliffe, Rothermere, Beaverbrook and Maxwell come readily to mind. In their day they were probably just as ruthless and domineering but technology gave Rupert some extra weapons not available to his predecessors.
Laughing at the naïveté of Americans is nothing new. This joke was no doubt very much to the taste of the readers of Punch. They would have instantly recognised the Yank’s mistake. What he took for a typical ‘British’ squire was obviously a profiteer, that is newly rich. Although he was wealthy he was not a gentleman at all. The American’s companion clearly is a lady and is wondering how she can talk him out of such an error.
The profiteer looks like a prototype for that rank outsider Mr Bott, father of the irritating Violet Elizabeth.
The Great Depression was still destroying more people’s lives in 1934. Most, if not all, the readers of Punch would have been well aware of its effects. Even if their own lives were not greatly affected they would have known others who had suffered severely. Joking about those with more money than sense would have given some sense of relief. The grande dame in this picture is probably the widow of a man who had invested more wisely than most.
Jobs were hard to find. So Perkins knows when he is well off. So does the maid, standing in military attention ready to carry out madame’s suitcase out to the waiting Bentley where the uniformed chauffeur will take charge of it.
This cartoon is not intended to be a joke. It is merely chronicling one of the ways in which life had changed since the days of Queen Victoria.
In 1933 many of Punch’s female readers would remember the role of the local ‘little dressmakers’ in their families’ lives. By 1933 these useful workers had become rare and, of course, by now they are as obsolete as lorimers and wheelwrights.
In 1933 the British Empire still seemed to be in full working order. There were very few obvious signs of its imminent end. In India in particular it was still possible for the Raj to believe that Nehru and Gandhi’s Congress Party represented only a tiny minority of the population at large. In many parts of the globe administrators, army officers and traders (and their respective wives) would frequently peruse out of date copies of Punch and the Illustrated London News in order to keep in touch with what was happening ‘back home’.
In view of this surprisingly few references to the Empire found their way into the pages of Punch. Usually the jokes were fairly crude, based on the ‘natives’ mistaking English words or British concepts. This example is subtly different.
To his credit the General is trying to address the members of the ultra loyal delegation in their own language. Understandably he isn’t too good at it. People would not have been likely to tell him that he was making mistakes. But there was a bigger problem than the use of the correct words. He was making a modest self-deprecating reply. British officers would have understood immediately and assured him that his new status was entirely deserved. Even if the words had been accurate this show of modesty would have made no sense to the delegation. The Senior Indian Officer’s reaction was simply - if in doubt agree with the Huzor (which roughly means ‘lord’.)
So the General is told to his face that he didn’t deserve his knighthood and there is nothing he can do about it. This time the joke was on the General.
For all the rings on his sleeve the Merchant Navy skipper belongs to the lower orders. His well-heeled passengers are aghast at the suggestion that they are less valuable than some pedigree cattle.
