Punch
a well known London comic weekly. The first issue appeared July 17, 1841. Henry Mayhew, Mark Lemon, and Stirling Coyne were associate editors. Douglas Jerrold and Gilbert a Beckett were contributors. Ebenezer Landells had charge of engravings and drawings. The enterprise was an imitation of the Paris Charivari. The name was borrowed from the principal character in the popular puppet show. Many distinguished writers lent their aid. Thackeray's contributions, since published separately, fill a volume. Other noted contributors were "Tom" Hood, "Tom" Taylor, Artemas Ward, G. A. Sala, and H. K. Browne, the latter under the name of "Phiz." The inspiring genius was Mark Lemon, the first editor-in-chief. He kept Punch free from party bias, and was thus in a position to attack all forms of public wrong, pernicious legislation, and to lampoon the follies, shams, and affectations of society. Punch sold for a sixpence. The first issue ran into its fifth thousand. Subsequent issues reached an immense circulation. It is safe to say that no paper published in London has had a greater influence in shaping public opinion. One reason lay in the impartial way in which praise and blame were dealt out to friend and foe alike. While intensely British and even confined to London in its sympathies, Punch has not failed now and again to thrill the whole world. It never missed an occasion to ridicule President Lincoln, yet at his death, Mark Lemon wrote, referring of course to Punch:
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace,
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,
His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face;
His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair.
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,
His lack of all we prize as debonair,
Of power or will to shine, or art to please;
You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,
Judging each step as though the way were plain,
Reckless, so it could point its paragraph
Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain:
Besides this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?
Yes; he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen;
To make me own this kind of prince's peer,
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men.
Some reminiscences of the first editor of Punch have recently been going the rounds of the press, in connection with the famous humorist's centenary; for Mark Lemon followed the example of Tennyson, Lincoln, FitzGerald, and other celebrities, in choosing 1809 for his birth-year. It was Lemon's rather peculiar and suggestive name that finally determined the choice of a title for the projected paper. The Funny Dog had been all but decided upon, when one of the group of artists and authors interested in the new journal spoke of it as resembling a good brew of punch, in that it was nothing without a Lemon. Thereupon Henry Mayhew, the proprietor of the paper, caught at the suggestion and exclaimed: "A capital idea! We'll call it Punch!" So humble were its first beginnings that Lemon's salary was no more than thirty shillings a week. Yet so truly did he discern the possibilities of the new weekly, and so effectively did he bend all his energies toward realizing those possibilities, that eventually he enjoyed an editorial income of fifteen hundred pounds a year. The story of Lemon's brilliant achievements and of the remarkable success he made of Punch--a success that is wont to seem somewhat incredible to readers on this side of the Atlantic--is an interesting one. Its genial and tactful first editor has been dead nearly forty years.--The Dial.