What crossed my mind was the appearance of the more senior officers: majors and lieutenant colonels in modern times lead their men from the front (although not the more senior officers such as colonels and above). (I remember reading about the Parachute Regiment battalion at Goose Green in the Falklands, where the colonel - leading from the front - was indeed killed in action.) I’m sure they no longer look like the ones in the cartoon.
Looking at them and their physiques, there seems to be a big difference between the captain and the major. I can’t imagine that major or that colonel leading from the front!
Incidentally, I was unable to read the captions, they being so small even after clicking the thumbnail to enlarge the picture; I can’t zoom in on that for some reason. The only solution I could find was to use the ‘snipping tool’ to copy the (enlarged) picture and then view it in a new window where I could zoom in (Ctrl +) as necessary.
If anyone else has the same problem, that’s a workable solution.
A clear indicator of social status was which type of football you played or watched. Rugby football was for the toffs and ‘soccer’ for the rest. That is all quite implicit in this cartoon. This explanation would have been quite unnecessary for the readers of Punch.
We see here a glimpse of a world that has all but vanished. The visitor is clearly not a plutocrat. All the same he is a passenger in his own car. The chauffeur evidently likes the good things in life unlike his employer who is made to support him.
The boy’s father assumes that being a lawyer would impress his son’s school friends. The boy innocently punctures his father’s self-esteem. Thus we are afforded a rare glimpse into the world of Public School snobbery.
Many jokes were based on the office boy – the lowest of the low in the office hierarchy. There was a tradition according to which he might – in the fullness of time – become the managing director.
How things have changed. The most junior person nowadays is not likely to be a boy at all. Working your way up is an unlikely scenario.
This cartoon is the result of various news stories. Typical of these is the judge who asked ‘who is Charlie Chaplin?’ It has been argued that his honour knew perfectly but wanted the record of the case to be comprehensive.
It is, of course, true that judges are well paid and therefore exempt from the every day cares of the rest of us. There is a good reason for this since there is a lower probability of bribery.
In Victorian times there was great pressure to conform to organised religion. By the mid -twenties this was not as great but there was still a general expectation in this regard. The reason given for non-attendance is unlikely and that surely is the point of the joke.
This is quite intriguing. We are probably witnessing a fancy dress party. It is clear that the funny man is the one with a large false nose. But what about the ‘well I did’? His ‘disguise’ doesn’t look complicated. Is he an old flame? Neither of the sisters looks displeased. So, what is going on?
George Belcher always stands outside the ‘charmed circle’ of upper middle class assumptions. Here he is directly confronting the class issue. It is hard to see Grey as a representative of those who are ‘coming up’. Even so, post-World War One it tended to be harder to find good, loyal domestic servants. It would take World War Two to make the change-over more or less complete.
Golf features frequently during the inter war years in Punch. For its upper middle class readers golf was an attractive way of whiling away the time – of which they had plenty. Too much of it in many cases. Here the joke is based on the caddy’s lack of status as well as stature.
This artist continues to amuse us with excerpts from history and mythology in which he introduces modern concepts which are totally inappropriate. Post World War One little boys would certainly act like this but post Hastings they wouldn’t dare and they certainly wouldn’t know how to write. Furthermore William couldn’t read.
The man on the left is unwilling to contemplate the legs of the lady on the right. In 2017 this seems quite a bizarre reaction. In 1927 the man would be something like 50 years old. For most of his life he would have seen women wearing skirts going down to their ankles. This post-war fashion would have upset him.
This is quite an odd subject for a cartoon at the time.
The traditional British self-deprecation is dispensed with. That expression ‘hot stuff’ must have gone out of fashion some 50 years ago. I certainly heard it being used in my youth.
